Nursing and education leaders have branded a decision to freeze funding for nursing and midwifery courses a “disaster”, warning it will undermine plans to grow the domestic healthcare workforce.
Concerns have been raised that the government’s decision to maintain per-student funding across universities at last year’s levels represents a real-terms reduction of around £108m compared to 2024-25.
“University courses are the single biggest route into the profession and this would be a disaster”
Patricia Marquis
The funding, part of the strategic priorities grant set by the Department for Education and distributed by the Office for Students (OfS) in England, will total £1.347m for 2025-26, according to a letter sent by education secretary Bridget Phillipson.
The grant is designed to cover the additional costs of running high-cost courses, including nursing, midwifery and allied health professions, as well as support programmes that advance equality of opportunity and those delivered by world-class specialist providers.
In the letter. sent to interim chair of the OfS Sir David Behan, Ms Phillipson set out that the OfS must maintain per-student funding rates in line with last year.
This funding allocation was made “against the backdrop of the extremely challenging fiscal context inherited from the previous government”, she explained.
She added that it was “more important than ever” that the grant supports the government’s long-term ambitions on growth and opportunities.
As part of this, she asked the OfS to prioritise funding for “strategically important subjects” including nursing and midwifery.
However, the decision to freeze funding rather than increase it has sparked fears among health leaders that the government’s workforce targets could be jeopardised.
Responding to the letter, the Royal College of Nursing executive director for England, Patricia Marquis, said: “The financial crisis in higher education is already threatening nursing courses, with our research showing an explosion in universities resorting to cutting nurse lecturer jobs.
“A freeze in per-student funding, effectively a real-terms cut, could make a bad situation worse, resulting in not only more job losses, but impacting the very financial viability of nursing courses.
“University courses are the single biggest route into the profession and this would be a disaster.”
Ms Marquis called for additional funding to be released “to protect nursing courses in response to rising costs”.
She warned that further instability across the healthcare sector could impact upcoming NHS reforms and undermine the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS “before it’s even published”.
Meanwhile, the chief executive of the University Alliance, Vanessa Wilson, also argued that freezing the grant represented a “real-terms cut”.
This decision, combined with recent cuts to funding for level 7 apprenticeships, would create “problems at multiple points in the healthcare skills pipeline”, she warned.
Ms Wilson noted the recent publication of the Immigration White Paper, which set out that the government no longer wants to rely on workers recruited from overseas.
“If they continue to remove funding from education that the NHS relies on to train a homegrown workforce, it’s difficult to see how they can avoid being dependent on talent from abroad,” she said.
“If the government doesn’t act now, more dramatic action will undoubtedly be needed at a later point. This is not a future-proof approach.”
A government spokesperson said: “We hugely value the work of talented nurses and midwives which is why we have prioritised strategic priorities grant funding for important, high-cost courses, including nursing and midwifery, that are vital for economic growth and our Plan for Change.
“The dire situation we inherited has meant this government must take tough decisions to put universities on a firmer financial footing and we’re continuing to support them, including by increasing the amount they can charge in tuition fees.
“We are rebuilding the NHS for the benefit of patient and staff and ensuring nursing remains an attractive career choice, including by unveiling a refreshed workforce plan to ensure we have the right staff in the right place so the NHS can be there for everyone.”
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