Student nurses in Wales are facing severe financial hardship, raising concerns about the future of the profession.<\/p>\n
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Wales has highlighted the struggles of nursing students who are questioning the sustainability of their education and future careers due to financial constraints.<\/p>\n
This comes at a time when the health services are under immense pressure.<\/p>\n
The RCN Wales is urging the Welsh Government to increase the NHS bursary to cover students’ living costs, reduce the means-tested burden, and make it available to all nursing students.<\/p>\n
They are also calling for investment in nursing education and research from higher education institutions (HEIs).<\/p>\n
Nico Williams, a nursing student and RCN student ambassador, said: “As an RCN student ambassador and student rep for my nursing class, I\u2019ve seen firsthand many examples of the financial hardships that student nurses experience, and the knock-on effects that has on their studies and ability to complete the course.<\/p>\n
“The people stepping up to embrace the challenge of a nursing career must be celebrated and supported to complete their education without fear of debt, homelessness and food poverty.”<\/p>\n
Dr Richard Hellyar, senior lecturer at Cardiff University, said: “This is the tip of the iceberg, the impact on society is going to be huge if nothing gets done.<\/p>\n
“I want Welsh Government to stand up and take notice that, if we don’t intervene now, this is just going to get worse and worse across society, not just education and nursing.”<\/p>\n
Rachel Hadland, RCN Wales acting associate director of nursing (professional practice), said: “Currently the financial support available to students studying nursing in Wales is not adequate, the amount of funding available has not kept pace with the cost of living and as a result we are not attracting and retaining students in nursing.”<\/p>\n
Helen Whyley, executive director of RCN Wales, said: “Students should be learning, practising, and gaining the complex knowledge and skills needed to be a registered nurse, not burning out from financial stress before they even begin.”<\/p>\n
The RCN Wales is calling for an urgent review of the current funding models to prevent students from being pushed into poverty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Student nurses in Wales are facing severe financial hardship, raising concerns about the future of the profession. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,45095,18267,4884,45097,45093,24600,45096,45094,16,15,1764,14794],"class_list":{"0":"post-96491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-financial-constraints","10":"tag-financial-hardship","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-nursing-career","13":"tag-nursing-students","14":"tag-rcn","15":"tag-royal-college-of-nursing","16":"tag-student-nurses","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-wales","20":"tag-welsh-government"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114497315431385166","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}