By Ben Kerrigan-
A new government package worth £172 million is to help to train thousands more nursing degree apprentices
The package designed for nursing careers in the Uk will be made more accessible through ‘earn and learn’ route, the Department of Health has said.
Up to 2,000 nursing apprentices are to be trained every year for the next 4 years. Nursing careers in England will be made more accessible through a new government package worth up to £172 million, which will enable healthcare employers to take on up to 2,000 nursing degree apprentices every year over the next 4 years.
The news comes following a surge in interest in health careers. The number of people looking for information on nursing on the NHS careers website rising by 138% between March and June.
Nursing degree apprenticeships provide a route into nursing where people can train to nationally recognised standards, and earn as they learn, benefiting those for whom a full-time university course is not practical or preferred.
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said:
”I’m thrilled to see a rising interest in nursing careers, but we must ensure this fantastic career is truly diverse and open to all.
Nursing apprenticeships allow students to earn as they learn and this new funding will enable healthcare employers to hire thousands more, helping us to deliver 50,000 more nurses by the end of this Parliament.
Gillian Keegan, Apprenticeships and Skills Minister said:
”Nursing apprenticeships are a brilliant way to start a truly rewarding career with our fantastic NHS. Nurses are at the heart of our NHS and their care, compassion and support of patients save and transform lives across the country every day.
This multi-million pound funding boost will help to support thousands of apprentices to gain the skills they need, and earn while they learn. Apprenticeships are an excellent way for anyone, regardless of their background, to kick start their career or to progress.
Apprenticehips-
NHS and other healthcare employers will receive £8,300 per placement per year for both new and existing apprenticeships. Nursing degree apprentices already receive a salary and have their tuition costs paid for through the apprenticeship programme.
The funding will enable employers to meet the costs of taking on apprentices, including staffing costs while apprentices are undertaking education and training.
The nursing degree apprenticeship is a 4-year course with placements available in the 4 fields of adult, children, mental health and learning disability, after which students can qualify as fully registered nurses. NHS and social care employers currently train around 1,000 nurse apprentices every year.
In addition to this funding, employers in England will also benefit from a new payment announced last month of £2,000 for each new apprentice they hire aged under 25, and £1,500 for each new apprentice they hire aged 25 and over, up until 31 January 2021.
The news comes the week after the NHS People Plan was published setting out how the NHS will put staff well being at its heart with a new recruitment, retention and support package. It sets out practical support for well being such as safe spaces to rest and recuperate, well being guardians and support to keep staff physically safe and healthy.
Ofqual admitted there would be young people who would have most likely earned a C in an exam receiving an A-grade. They also said it would mean such an increase in the numbers of top grades, that they would no longer be credible, something that has happened in other countries, dealing with the same circumstances.
The approach we are taking is the fairest way to award grades without exams. But we understand that this does nothing to reduce the frustration of students who believe they would have been able to achieve a better grade, if they had had the chance to sit an exam. Also, we recognise that any process of this sort will produce results that need to be reviewed, which is why we have put in place an appeals process.
In our consultation, an overwhelming majority of teachers said that when it comes to appeals, they did not feel it would be right that students should be able to challenge the judgements that their school or college had made about their work. We agree: any appeal would have to be done by someone better placed than teachers to judge a student’s likely grade; in the circumstances this year, we do not believe there is such a person.
However, a student can ask their school to check what they submitted, to check for errors. Schools and colleges can also appeal if they feel that the moderation process has not adequately taken account of changes in the make up of this years’ entry, for example if a school has been taken over and re-organised; or if it can show grades are lower than expected because students this year are very different from past years.
Although the process of moderation is essential to ensure results are as fair as they can be, the truth is that there is nothing fair about the fact that young people this year have been denied the possibility of demonstrating their skills in an exam. For that reason, in designing the moderation system, where we have had to make decisions that would affect the overall results, we have erred on allowing greater leniency. As a result, grades this year will have leniency built in: by around 2 percentage points at A level grade A and above (compared to a slight drop of 1 percentage point in 2019), and by up to 1 percentage point at grade 4 and above at GCSE (compared to a slight increase of 0.5 percentage points in 2019).
Our early analysis shows that students from all backgrounds – including more disadvantaged and black, ethnic minority and Asian communities – have not been disadvantaged by this year’s awarding process. That is reassuring – but it is important that individuals are able to have their complaints heard if they feel they have been discriminated against.
Overall, students will get the best estimate that can be made of the grade they would have achieved if exams had gone ahead. But of course, a system of calculated grades and a statistical model can never know how an individual student might have performed on the day. These are best estimates, and it is possible that some students might have done better (or worse) had they taken an exam, but we will never know.
Colleagues across higher and further education understand this, and many have committed to showing flexibility in their admissions decisions. This will be welcome news for students who are intending to move on to further study in the autumn.
To all students receiving their results, whatever their next step, I wish them well. They have experienced a unique disruption to their lives. We hope that the grades awarded will enable as many as possible to move on with their lives with the least possible difficulty.
Sha