Calls for 11,000 more school nurses in UK as children’s needs grow

Children have increasingly complex needs in the wake of the pandemic, the researchers say. Photograph: Alamy

The UK needs at least 11,000 more school nurses to deal with the increasingly complex needs of young people after the pandemic, and help prevent them from developing serious mental health problems, researchers and campaigners say.

The number of school nurses has fallen by 35% in the last five years to about 2,000, and research by Oxford Brookes University, the University of Birmingham and the Oxford Health NHS foundation trust has found that a lack of long-term investment has resulted in many local areas scrapping the roles altogether.