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15/07/2015

Calls To Review Midwifery Funding

There are calls for changes to be made to how midwifery students are funded.

The Council of Deans of Health and Universities UK issued a joint statement on the issue, calling for reform for students of midwifery, nursing and allied health profession courses.

They want the Government to look at whether the current grants-based system can be shifted to student loans. It also urges the NHS to explore “its scope to repay part of a students' loan after a given period of service”, thereby attracting newly-qualified staff into careers in the health service and reduce spending on agency staff.

Professor Steve West, Chair of Universities UK's Health Education and Research Policy Network, said: "It is time for change. The current system of funding is not working. We don't have enough nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in training to meet the current and future needs of patients.

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"At the same time, students are not receiving enough financial support to meet their day to day costs of living and universities receive less for many of these courses than they actually cost to deliver, and less than the £9,000 fee that universities receive for other subjects."

Professor Dame Jessica Corner, Chair of the Council of Deans of Health, added: "There are no easy decisions on funding reform but with appropriate safeguards, the outstanding record of nursing, midwifery and AHPs in widening participation to higher education can continue.

"There are risks to change but if we want the numbers of health professionals that we know future patients will need, the system must be overhauled."

The initial statement by the two organisations also said that while NHS-funded students "mostly have grants rather than loans, they often have less to live on, despite their courses being significantly longer (42 weeks a year compared to 30)."

This funding, they add, is reduced further in their third year, "making financial hardship a key issue."

In one London university for example, 63% of the whole university's hardship fund went to NHS-funded students in 2012-13, the statement revealed.

They have called for "appropriate safeguards" to be put in place "to ensure that these students are not unduly deterred from studying and that access to these health professions remains open to all."

The full statement can be read here.

(JP)

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"There are calls for changes to be made to how midwifery students are funded."