The Royal College of Nursing's quest to improve recruitment

In November 2018 the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) published Fund our Future Nurses: Cost effective options to support nursing students and grow the nursing workforce in England (RCN, 2018a). This argued that there are credible alternatives to the current tuition fee arrangements for higher education funding in England, which could be adopted to encourage more people to study nursing. As part of its campaign to raise awareness the RCN commissioned a poll from YouGov and more than 50% of those surveyed in England agreed that the Government should increase funding for nurse education to address the current shortfall in the numbers of people opting to go to university to study nursing (RCN, 2018b). It is important to stress that the situation in England is much worse than in the other countries of the UK because NHS Wales, NHS Scotland and Health and Social Care Northern Ireland have continued to fund student nurse training.