High dropout rates threaten plans for degree-only nursing

Sam Lister, Health Editor

Plans to make nursing a degree-only profession could be thwarted by the high number of students who drop out before finishing training, the latest figures suggest.

More than half of students on some nursing degree courses do not graduate because of pressures of time, money and the academic standards demanded.

The figures, obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, show wide variations in attrition rates among England’s 10 strategic health authorities.

At one university, in the North West, 51 per cent of students fail to complete its degree programme in adult nursing. The highest attrition rates in London, the South West, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber show more than a third of students dropping out.

The Department of Health is so concerned about the problem that it ordered an annual report on dropout rates from university nursing courses, Nursing Attrition National Aggregate. However, it has not published the findings.

The figures, obtained by Nursing Standard magazine,dropouts are even more common. One university lost 78 per cent of students on a children’s nursing degree course, and more than 54 per cent of students on a mental health nursing course failed to graduate.

The findings come a week after The Times reported on government plans to require those wishing to become a nurse to have a degree. Supporters claim that the move, which will be enforced from 2013, will improve the quality of patient care and raise the status of nursing.

Critics suggest that the changes will create an elitist profession and scare off recruits with the prospect of a long and expensive period of study. There are also concerns that some nurses would be “too clever to care” and refuse to carry out duties such as washing and feeding patients and helping them to the lavatory.

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said that the dropout rates cast degree-only plans into disarray. Concerns have also been raised about the millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, given in bursaries, wasted on courses that were not completed.

“These figures appear to massively undermine the Government’s new plans for nurses,” he said. “Such high dropout rates suggest there is something seriously wrong. Ministers are burying their heads in the sand by refusing to publish their own report into quit rates.”

Nursing education specialists said that financial difficulties and the high number of mature students who juggled families with their studies were among the main reasons for dropping out.

Nurses, who make up the largest part of the NHS workforce, now require the minimum of a diploma — a nursing course lasting two or three years — for trainee nursing positions. Under the new rules, candidates will require a degree in nursing or equivalent international qualification. The courses, lasting up to four years, will meet standards developed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the professional regulator.

Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, which helped to draw up the degree-only plans, said that losing potential nurses was “an entirely unnecessary waste of people who are willing to learn and want to care”.

He added: “Of course, some people will not be suited to the demands of nursing, but with rates as high as 78 per cent, something is seriously wrong with the support offered to the nurses of the future. Financial support is very important but it is not the only kind of support that needs to be on offer.”

A Department of Health official said that an incentive scheme to pay universities with low attrition rates would start next year.

www.timesonline.co.uk