Why nurses are as rare as GPs today.....

TODAY I confronted the critical cause of the crisis in the National Health Service – and identified a key solution. And it is not rocket science.

Let us be clear. Whichever way we cut it the biggest problem facing the NHS is shortage of staff at all levels. But most of all it is at nursing levels that the crisis is worst. NHS England says the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs and most of those are nurses.

So what has gone wrong? I, and the young woman who took my blood today, can tell you.

Let us call her Milly. She is 26 years old, now married and has a young child. She works part time as a Health Care Assistant. She is sufficiently qualified to take blood samples. Very well and painlessly I might add.

And she wants to be a nurse. But can only be a Health Care Assistant. 

And that is where it has all gone terribly wrong.

Milly had a good education with a couple of A levels. But there is no tradition of academia in her family and she does not see herself as academic. And to be a nurse today she will need a degree; no one knows why but that's how it is.

And that means this young mother would have to give up work. Incur £27,000 of debt. And only after three unpaid years gain entry to nursing.

It is of course insane.

What used to happen, what should happen, is that she trains 'on the job'. Providing along the way useful support for the services of the NHS at a lower rate of pay than a qualified nurse. After three years she would have taken the SAME exams and gained the SAME qualification. And she would not owe £27,000 to a frankly corrupt loan company providing dividends to shareholders which will include MPs! Money also that at her level of pay will mean she must pay off, thus reducing the value of her salary notably.

It is of course barmy.

And worse it debars thousands of capable and worthy people from delivering the caring services they wish to. Indeed and worse, it also debars thousands of those asylum seekers who only want to work and earn a better life.

The solution is simple. Stop the daft requirement for a degree right now. If that causes a problem for those who have already gone that route then create a new nursing level just below State Registered Nurse which is achieved by an apprentice-style on-the-job training process. And start recruiting the tens of thousands we need to start reducing those appalling waiting lists.

And also write off the ludicrous student loans that we have piled on to young nurses.

PS – While we are about it the time has come to end the ridiculous demand for expensive degrees in a host of jobs – police, fire, ambulance services. The list is long, the cost to our nation immense, the only winners the cheats and crooks who govern us.