Student loan forgiveness for NHS nurses in England would help keep people in the profession for up to a decade longer, a new report has claimed.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) today published a new policy report, Fixing the Leaky Pipeline, which puts forward the “economic case” for wiping student nurses’ debt in return for service.
“The prospect of huge debt continues to put off the nurses of the future”
Nicola Ranger
The report contains a total of 17 recommendations to the UK Government about improving the recruitment and retention of nurses in England.
It calls on the government to take action to address some of the key issues facing nursing in England: high vacancy rates, large numbers leaving the profession within five years, a drop in university applications and attrition from courses.
Chief among its recommendations was a student loan forgiveness scheme, which the RCN has been lobbying for since last year.
The scheme would see the government progressively clearning student loan debt for nurses in England in return for years of service in the NHS and other publicly funded health and care settings.
In its new report, the RCN suggested forgiving 30% of the overall debt after three years of service, 70% after seven years and 100% after 10 years.
This, the report claimed, would be worth around £1.162bn per cohort of nurses, based on an additional 65,000 “nurse years” worked in the health service.
This figure was based on a survey of newly-registered nurses conducted by London Economics on behalf of the RCN.
The nurses were given the choice of jobs with different benefits, such as loan forgiveness, better pay or flexible hours, and asked how long they would commit to working.
It found that, on average, graduate nurses were willing to commit to seven-10 more years in the posts that promised loan forgiveness, compared to the ones that did not.
London Economics determined the value of this policy based on this potentially drastic improvement to retention.
A UK Government spokesperson told Nursing Times that the Department for Education (DfE) had “no plans” to forgive student debt for “any specific profession” at the moment.
“Nurses play a critical role in providing high-quality, compassionate and safe care, as well as helping to restore our world-class NHS system, as part of our plan for change,” the spokesperson said in response to the RCN’s report.
“Eligible nurses receive a non-repayable grant of at least £5,000 per academic year from the NHS through the Learning Support Fund, in addition to maintenance and tuition fee loans provided by the Student Loans Company.”
Leading health figures have also previously backed the call for the government to forgive student loans for nurses and other clinical graduates.
Ahead of last year’s general election, both Labour and the Conservatives were asked to pledge to such a scheme, after the publication of the Times Health Commission’s final report. Neither party’s would-be health secretary committed to the policy.
The RCN’s report also contained a slew of other recommendations for the government that it claimed would help improve recruitment and retention.
One called on the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and DfE to conduct a “public engagement awareness campaign” to promote nursing, to help improve dwindling application rates in England.
The RCN also reiterated calls it has made before to make the apprentice levy “fit for purpose” for nursing programmes, among other support for the higher education sector.
Nicola Ranger
Further, it asked the government to improve financial support to students and apprentices while training, in addition to introducing a loan forgiveness scheme backdated to 2017 when the nursing bursary was scrapped.
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN chief executive and general secretary, described the current education system as “broken” and said it was falling nurses and patients.
“The prospect of huge debt continues to put off the nurses of the future, whilst those that do enter the profession are given little reason to stay in their jobs,” she said.
“This results in too few nurses in our services and falling standards of care for patients, with the most vulnerable suffering the most.
“A loan forgiveness model for those who commit to working in the NHS and public services would make nursing a much more attractive career, boosting recruitment and retention.”
She claimed that the report laid out a “clear economic case” for the loan forgiveness scheme.
Professor Ranger added: “The government must give it serious consideration if it wants to transform patient care.”
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