Help the NHS by bringing back bursaries for nurses in training – Yorkshire Post Letters

I WRITE in response to your article ‘NHS sale fears like Nessie, Johnson insists’ (The Yorkshire Post, November 9).

So Boris Johnson has announced a visa scheme to enable overseas doctors and nurses to work in the UK. Pity he didn’t talk to a few student nurses to find out why there is a shortage of nurses from the UK. Britain is supposedly a rich country, it shouldn’t plunder health staff from other countries.

Tell Donald Trump to keep his hands off our NHS; it is not for sale – Yorkshire Post Letters

In training, nurses had a bursary, not a student loan, reflecting the fact that nursing students worked as part of their training. It also encouraged promising young people to enter nursing.

Minister insists new NHS hospitals in Leeds will be properly resourced

Former Chancellor George Osborne stopped bursaries. Student nurses now rely on loans like other students so when on wards they are effectively working for nothing. What shoddy treatment!

Conservative claims to restrict immigration, whilst developing fancy visa schemes, are hypocrisy of the worst order. Instead of dreaming up fancy visa schemes the next Government should reintroduce the bursary scheme to encourage young people into the Health Service. It would be a simple measure providing a home grown solution to NHS staffing problems.