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Dismay at 'alarming’ shortfall in applicants to study nursing in Wales

By Mark Mansfield
First year nursing students at Aberystwyth University

The Royal College of Nursing Wales (RCN) has urged the Welsh Government to increase funding for students studying nursing in Wales, after admission figures revealed an ‘alarming’ shortfall in applicants this year.

Figures published by The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) confirm that universities in Wales have been unable to fill the Welsh government commissioned places on nursing courses and attract the number of nursing students needed.

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Applications

Despite Wales being the only nation in the UK to see an increase in applications for 2024 - to 4,095, the acceptance figure was only 1270, falling far short of the 2400 Welsh government commissioned university places.

Overall applications to study nursing in Wales over the last three years have declined and the recent increase in applications has not resulted in an increase in accepted places.

There has also been an ongoing decline in the number of acceptances since 2021 with an overall fall of 24.9%.

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Stagnated

Helen Whyley, Executive Director of RCN Wales said: “We previously welcomed the 16% rise in UCAS applications to study nursing in Wales for 2024. However, the conversion to actual nursing students has stagnated over the last three years, which means there still isn’t a sustainable domestic supply for the future.

“At present, poor domestic student recruitment and retention of the existing workforce are being offset by international recruitment, both for student and internationally educated nurses.

“We celebrate the importance of a diverse workforce in Wales; however, we must work to strengthen our domestic pipeline to meet the needs of future health and social care services across Wales.

“Our intelligence shows that the level of financial support to students is so low that it detracts many from commencing their courses.

“We believe there is an urgent need for the Welsh government to increase levels of funding for students studying nursing in Wales.”

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8 comments

Karl

3 yrs of unpaid training, to have a huge debt after it. Hikes in costs to practice and rubbish payrises. Always was a recipe for disaster.

Reply
Howie

I wonder how many of existing Health Care Assistants HCA applied to start training as nurses or has existing experience of NHS put them off that progression route.

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hdavies15

The best route for training nurses is an apprenticeship where they can learn while they learn. Also it reduces the academic bias giving them practical grounding up to some intermediate level. Those who progress further onto degree courses could probably complete that stage in 2 years part time on say block release rather than engaging in the costly route currently favoured by the authorities.

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NOT Grayham Jones

That is so true- the current system is basically a joke. You basically incur massive debts to train to become a nurse and work most of the time getting experience but not being paid to end up with a piece of paper. Pre Blair who pulled off the biggest con trick in history in which he persuaded people you must go to university for 3 years and pay for the privilege for the rest of your working life to get a degree which has become basically worthless, people like nurses trained on the job and got rightly paid. Bring that back and you might solve the problem.

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Jack

Useful to have the UK figure. Is the shortfall only in Wales?

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Hywel

Why the large gap between applications and acceptances? Is it the paucity of quality of applicants, or are the universities asking for overly qualified school leavers for the courses? There’s a suggestion that government wants higher qualified nurses, to reduce the cost of having doctors, whereas surely the hospitals just need more basic level nursing staff without overtly medical qualifications.

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Mawkernewek

Partly, it will be that when applicants apply for university, they normally have several in parallel if they're applying via UCAS.

Reply
Rhun Perkins

Does this mean they are applying to study in Lloeger.

Reply

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That is so true- the current system is basically a joke. You basically incur massive debts to train to become a nurse and work most of the time getting experience but not being paid to end up with a piece of paper. Pre Blair who pulled off...

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