Will the return of financial support for students improve nurse recruitment?

Both major political parties promised to restore student nurse funding in their election manifestos. Shortly after winning the election, the Conservative Government announced that it was to reinstate the bursary for student nurses in the guise of a maintenance grant. These grants, to the value of £5000–8000, will be given to students starting nursing courses in September 2020 (Campbell, 2019).

There have been many news headlines over recent years highlighting the workforce issues facing the NHS. Perhaps the greatest challenge is rectifying the acute shortage of trained nurses, which The King's Fund has reported (Beech et al, 2019), based on figures from NHS Improvement (2018). Nurse vacancies soared to a high of around 41 000 in 2018, with nearly 1 in 8 posts being unfilled. The King's Fund suggested that this level of vacancies may worsen and attributed this to the potential aftermath of the UK leaving the EU, with data being cited showing that European-trained nurses are leaving the UK to seek work elsewhere (Beech et al, 2019).