Council of Deans of Health response to the OfS Strategic Priorities Grant letter

The Council was very disappointed to see the changes to the Office for Students Strategic Priorities Grant announced on 6 July which will see close to a 3% cut in the resource provided to teach every pre-registration nursing student in England. Members of the Council of Deans of Health are already delivering these high-cost courses in a challenging environment for higher education finances and to lose nearly £300 per student per year towards the delivering these vital courses will put the viability of some courses at risk.

These changes will impact the home-grown routes for the nurses the NHS and wider health and care system need – adding an immediate financial hit but also sending a negative message about government perceptions of the value of nurses and nurse education. This could especially impact vulnerable courses, such as those for Learning Disability nursing, where there is already reduced provision nationally.

Ed Hughes, CEO of the Council of Deans of Health said:

“The Council has argued for many years that health education needs to be a joint endeavour with effective coordination of incentives across health and education, and reducing the funding available to teach nursing is clearly out of step with the objective to shift to a predominantly domestically trained workforce set out in the Government’s own 10 Year Health Plan. As the entry point for the vast majority of careers in nursing, these programmes are essential to government plans for the NHS. They lead to lifelong careers of service, lifting individuals and communities in supporting better health and productivity. This decision is symptomatic of the lack of join-up across government on the vital question of the future health workforce.

These funding cuts unpick the arrangements which were established in 2017-18 when nursing, midwifery and allied health subjects moved into the main student finance model. A combination of student fee income, high cost price group funding and supplementary funding was established following externally commissioned advice to ensure the sustainability of health education programmes. Given the erosion of the value of the student fee loan since then a cut of this nature will damage the critical national infrastructure of our health education system.

All of this comes at a time when members continue to wait for the 10 Year Workforce Plan, face financial challenges and deal with the consequences of political uncertainty at Westminster. We are urgently engaging the Office for Students, Department for Education and the Department of Health & Social Care to consider how the impact of these cuts on the future education of our nation’s nurses can be mitigated. We look forward to the opportunity to inform the forthcoming review of the Strategic Priorities Grant. We are ready to support the incoming Prime Minister and Cabinet to drive far better cross-government working to address their manifesto commitments for an NHS fit for the future and meet the reasonable expectations of our members.”