The number of people studying to become nurses has fallen substantially across England, with some areas recording a 40% drop in successful applications, according to analysis by the largest nursing union.
The latest regional data from Ucas, the university admissions service, shows the number of people accepted on to nursing courses fell across all parts of England between 2020 and 2023.
Acceptances on to pre-registration courses have fallen by 40% in north-east England, making the region the hardest hit, according to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
Yorkshire and Humberside and south-west England each recorded 25% declines, eastern England 22%, the south-east 19%, the north-west 18%, the East Midlands 15%, the West Midlands 14% and London 12%.
The RCN said whole regions were being left behind by a failing education system for nurses. It has called on the government to introduce a loan forgiveness model and funding for living costs for students who commit to working in the NHS after graduation, which it said was vital for encouraging recruitment into the profession.
The RCN’s chief executive and general secretary, Prof Nicola Ranger, said: “The prospect of huge debt and lack of financial support is putting off the nurses of the future, threatening to leave patients without the highly trained nursing professionals they desperately need. Nursing is an incredible career, but to fix a broken NHS the government must fix a broken nurse education model.
“Across the NHS alone there are tens of thousands of vacancies and demand for services continues to rise. We desperately need more people to join the profession, but the reality is nursing numbers are going in the wrong direction.
“Ministers are right to want to modernise the NHS and shift care into the community, but to do that you must make nursing an attractive career once again. That means forgiving the tuition fee loans of those who commit to working in the health service and funding their living costs. Investment in nursing is always money well spent.”
The number of students accepted on to nursing courses has declined for the last two years in succession, which Labour said while in opposition was “incredibly concerning”. Numbers fell by 13% in 2023.
The figures come a week after the government launched a consultation on its 10-year plan to transform the NHS, which includes a long-term workforce plan intended to increase the number of nurses from about 350,000 to 550,000 in 2036-37.
According to the RCN’s analysis, there are only 1,000 extra people a year forecast to start nursing courses in 2029 compared with a decade earlier, while there are more than 31,000 unfilled nursing posts in the English health service.
The RCN said nursing students needed specific funding commitments to reflect their unique circumstances and to encourage more domestic recruitment, and that a fully staffed NHS was crucial to delivering the government’s ambitions to get services back on track, shifting care from hospitals to the community.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS has faced chronic workforce shortages for years, with staff being burnt out and demoralised.
“This government will build a health service fit for the future with the workforce it needs to get patients seen on time.
“Bringing in the necessary staff will take time, but we are committed to delivering the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history with more midwives, nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals.”
