The UK government is considering eliminating the requirement for nursing and midwifery degrees, potentially replacing them with apprenticeships. Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch is examining whether prospective nurses and midwives could train on the job without incurring tuition fee debt.
Badenoch has expressed concern about the "degreeification of the world of work" and her party is developing plans to increase the use of apprenticeships. This initiative follows a similar move by the last Conservative government, which removed the degree requirement for police officers.
"I do wonder why we are putting so much debt on young people, and then they can't get jobs afterwards; when they get the jobs, they're not earning very much," Badenoch stated in a radio interview. She also questioned the NHS's reliance on foreign staff, suggesting a need for better internal structuring.
The requirement for all new nurses in England to hold a degree was implemented in 2013. At that time, only about a quarter of nurses had degrees, with most completing two-year diploma courses. The Department for Health argued the degree requirement would better equip nurses to handle increasingly complex patient needs and reflect their growing responsibilities.
Most nurses now complete a three-year undergraduate degree, typically requiring at least five GCSEs and two A-levels, although nursing degree apprenticeships are already available. Graduates often face significant student loan debt, with recent figures showing an average of £50,160 for nursing graduates, higher than that for doctors.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has strongly criticized the proposal, calling it based on "tired perceptions of nursing" that are decades out of date. The RCN stated that nursing is a "safety-critical, highly-skilled profession and vital to the delivery of modern health care." They emphasized that "all the evidence shows, nurses being degree-level educated improves patient safety outcomes."
The RCN also pointed to the Conservative party's record on nursing, citing increased student fees, the scrapping of the nursing bursary, years of pay cuts, and the subsequent strikes by nursing professionals.