A student nurse received the most tone deaf letter ever penned by a government minister – in the middle of a pandemic

Even an inevitable U-turn by Helen Whately over student bursaries this won’t heal the scars inflicted on new nurses just starting out on their careers

We’ve only just stopped clapping every Thursday, yet one group of carers is already feeling the results of that emotional retrenchment: student nurses.

One of these students, Jess Collins, wrote to her MP making the case for providing student nurses with financial support. Taking on the issue, her MP then wrote in support of the idea to the social care minister, Helen Whately. Her reply must be one of the most tone-deaf letters ever penned by a government minister.

In it, Whately says the government has no intention of backdating a £5,000 bursary to the current cohort of student nurses, even though they will provide the bursary for those starting training in future. She justifies this decision by asserting that these students, who are now being called into provide care on the frontline during the Covid-19, are “not providing a service”.

Not only does this lack empathy, it is clearly incorrect. Why were these students drafted onto the coronavirus frontline if they weren’t providing a “service” in the first place? Despite sounding like a cruel judgement on the hard work of trainee nurses, this also signals something far worse – ignorance.

Here is a minister who apparently has no understanding of, or at the very least no empathy for, the rigours of the training these student nurses undertake. In the traditional sense, they are students in name only, as they spend 50 per cent of their time working in NHS wards and surgeries. Even in normal times they provide care to patients, and up to now have been borrowing thousands of pounds to do allow them to do so.

That’s already a scandal, but in the middle of a pandemic, it’s immoral too. Even an inevitable U-turn by Whately on this won’t heal the scars inflicted on new nurses just starting out on their nursing careers.

But it doesn’t stop here. Only last week it emerged that some NHS Trusts who had agreed to pay student nurses joining the frontline are now reneging on these contracts, refusing to pay them the full amount they had promised. Although these trusts are not awash with cash, they have received a significant boost in funding due to Covid-19, and the sums involved in honouring these contracts are negligible by comparison. This kind of behaviour would seem outrageous in the private sector, let alone inside our National Health Service.

Some, but not all, have since agreed to pay the money agreed but, again, but the damage has already been done.

No one starts a career in nursing thinking they will be affluent. The motivation of these students is a desire to care and support us when we are at our most vulnerable. It might be too idealistic to think that they should be supported in return – but if we can’t manage that then we should at least be fair and honest in our treatment of this group.

Apparently that seems too big an ask for a government that already thinks it has won the war on Covid-19 and can now get back to “business as usual”. Nurses are an easy workforce to walk all over: they have never been militant, rarely taking industrial action, and providing selfless care.

The building up of nurses as “heroes” during the coronavirus pandemic – egged on by our government – always had a feel of a short-lived love affair which would end in tragedy. It’s just ended far sooner, and in an uglier way, than anyone could have predicted.

And yet, when we face inevitably second spike, who will this government start wooing again? And – to their utmost credit – who will put aside the appalling treatment they’ve had to face and respond with compassion?

In response, Helen Whately, minister for care, said: “The whole country is grateful to student nurses for their heroic work on the NHS frontline during this unprecedented global pandemic. Supernumerary status for student nurses is a technical definition created to ensure they have the space and time to learn, and it is widely supported across the nursing profession.

“There is a strong financial aid package for nurses and going forwards we have introduced even further support for nursing, midwifery and many allied health profession students consisting of a £5,000 to £8,000 grant to help with maintenance and associated study costs, which does not need to be paid back”.