This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Reform of nursing bursary scheme
13/12/2001
An overhaul of the bursary system for pre-registration
nursing and midwifery students across Scotland was
announced today.
The move follows a Scottish Executive Health Department
review of the support for student nurses and midwives, and
subsequent discussions with the Royal College of Nursing,
Royal College of Midwives and Unison on how these can be
improved.
From August 2002, the reforms will ensure that
pre-registration nurses and midwives are supported under
the Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary Scheme (NMBS)
instead of the current dual bursary system which is seen to
be unfair and complex.
They will increase the grant support available to lone
parents and dependants and create a fairer system for
covering student travel costs by improving the arrangements
for paying students' travel costs while they are on
placements, giving greater support to students who live a
distance from their institution. UK residence criteria will
be introduced for bursary applicants, thereby ending an
anomaly which pays for some overseas students to train in
Scotland but does not guarantee that they will then work in
the NHS in Scotland or rest of the UK.
Announcing details of the changes Health Minister
Malcolm Chisholm said:
"Student nurses and midwives will have a vital role to
play in ensuring NHSScotland meets the future health needs
of Scotland's people. They will help us drive forward our
efforts to improve health and health services throughout
the country. They will also help tackle the health
inequalities which blight our more deprived communities. It
is therefore vital that we continue to have sufficient
student nurses - 3,000 a year - entering Scottish
universities and colleges.
"In reviewing the support available to nursing students,
we concluded that their programmes are sufficiently
different from other higher education courses to justify a
continuing separate student support scheme. For example,
there are 45 weeks in each year of their course, with
around 50 per cent of their time spent on clinical
placements, often undertaken during unsociable hours and
inconvenient locations.
"However, we also concluded that there was no
justification for continuing to provide different support
for students on the various pre-registration nursing
programmes. That is why from August 2002, all new
diploma/ordinary and honours degrees nursing students will
receive support under the same NMSB scheme. Honours degree
students who began their courses in autumn 2001 will also
get support from the scheme from 2002.
"After gathering further evidence on the best way
forward, we also plan to introduce changes to the travel
allowances to overcome the disadvantages which are
currently faced by students who live far away from their
college or university. And from August we will increase the
allowances for lone parents' and dependants' to bring them
into line with the general student support system - a move
which will effectively providing additional help of around
£300 a year for the first child or dependent adult.
"These improvements - together with my announcement last
week that all newly qualified nurses and midwives will be
guaranteed at least one year's employment in NHSScotland -
will help encourage more school leavers to enter nursing
and midwifery training. By improving financial support for
students with families, the changes will also help reduce
drop-out rates and ensure as many of our gifted students as
possible complete their training and go on to work in
NHSscotland."
There are currently two support systems packages for
students undertaking pre-registration nursing education -
the NMSB scheme for three-year courses leading to a diploma
or an ordinary degree and a separate system or those on
four-year BA/BSc honours degree courses.
Support through the NMSB scheme currently includes:
- tuition fees paid on students' behalf
- a personal allowance, which is not
means-tested
- depdendents' allowance which is means-tested
- for eligible students, help towards extra costs of
travel to their practical placements
Support for BA/BSc honours nursing students
includes:
- tuition fees
- a living cost support package made up of a
means-tested Health Department bursary and a non
means-tested loan in roughly equal amounts (similar to
the amount of support available students in the general
support system)
- supplementary allowances available to students in
the general support system
The review aimed to create a single, integrated package
of support for students on all pre-registration courses.
This meant incorporating the honours degree students into
the main NMSB scheme. Under the new arrangements honours
degree students will be eligible for NMSB support for the
first three years of their course, with a lower rate of
bursary for the fourth year, to reflect the shorter length
of their final year.
The Executive announced a 10.4 per cent increase in
nursing bursaries earlier this year. Following today's
announcement, there will be additional investment in the
NMSB allowances for lone parents and dependants to bring
them into line with the general system, which are currently
18 per cent higher. This would represent additional support
of around £300 a year for the first child or dependent
adult.
NMSB Students pay for their daily travel to their
institution from the personal allowance of their bursary.
They can also apply for help towards travel to clinical
placements but have to deduct daily costs from their
placement travel claim. This means they only get further
support if their placement travel is more expensive than
normal travel. Therefore some students who have high daily
travelling costs may live closer to a placement and get no
support for that travel, while others who live near their
institution and have low daily travel costs, may get
support for placement travel. The Executive is keen to make
this system fairer by capping the deduction from placement
travel and will gather evidence to ensure that the cap is
set at the appropriate level.
Students, including honours nursing students, who
undertake higher education in the UK have to show that they
have been ordinarily resident in the UK for the past three
years, before they can qualify for public funding. Until
now there has been no such restrictions on overseas
students applying for NHS bursaries for nursing diploma
courses in the UK. This allows students to come to the UK
to train as nurses but does not guaranteed that all of them
will go on to work in the NHS. In line with changes being
introduced in England, students from overseas will get no
support from the NMSB scheme.