‘Bureaucracy’ affecting nurse apprenticeships uptake

At the event, happening in Newport this week, members voted overwhelmingly to support a motion asking the union’s leadership to lobby the government to improve the apprenticeship funding system.

“We don’t have a workforce crisis, we have an education crisis which has been created by complicated funding rules”

Ally Middleton

The apprenticeship levy, paid by employers with a wage bill of over £3m per year, is used to fund apprenticeship schemes across all sectors, with some money ringfenced for NHS schemes.

This levy, paid by employers with a wage bill of over £3m per year, is used to fund apprenticeship schemes across all sectors, with some money ringfenced for NHS schemes.

However, there have long been criticisms about the rules surrounding what the levy can be used for; NHS employers, for example, cannot use it for salaries or backfill for when apprentices are off diary doing training.

At the RCN event, nurses discussed the impact of these restrictions on nurse training.

Ally Middleton, a nurse member of RCN’s education forum who has worked on apprenticeship programmes for the last six years, aired her frustration at the bureaucracy surrounding funding.

Ms Middleton said she has had to turn talented prospective apprentices away because they did not meet tight criteria to allow their place to be funded.

“To have to tell 60 people that we can’t shortlist them [for an apprenticeship place] because of bureaucracy and rules is really heartbreaking,” she said.

“I know that those people are passionate about becoming a mental health nurse and want to work in our organisation, they want to train and they want to have the skills.

“People say we have a workforce crisis. We don’t have a workforce crisis, we have an education crisis which has been created by complicated funding rules.”

This debate came shortly after a warning by University Vocational Awards Council (UVAC) to the government about cutting the levy.

A greater emphasis than ever before has been placed on nurse, and nursing associate, apprenticeship schemes to meet ambitious domestic training targets set in NHS England’s 2023 long-term workforce plan.

The plan laid out an aim to increase apprenticeships and other “alternative routes” into professional roles, specifically hoping to train 22% of all clinical staff through apprenticeships by 2031-32.

Ever since the publication of this plan, however, educators have warned that without funded backfill, and other reforms, this could be difficult.

According to research by Unison in 2019, quoted by the proposer of the RCN motion, most of the available funding for NHS apprenticeships from the levy is not used. Ms Middleton said this was because it is too difficult and narrow in its scope to claim.

“Anyone would think the government doesn’t want us to use the money,” she added.

“I’d urge that these rules are looked at and apprenticeships across all levels are easily accessible for the NHS and all health and care staff.”

Resolution proposer Fiona Holley pointed to an estimated £418m of unused levy funding between 2020-23 as evidence that the rules should be relaxed, and said: “The long term workforce plan states the obvious: it’s the what and the why.

“What it fails to do is the how. No additional funding, no adjustment to the use of the levy. So, the levers that are described in the plan – train, retain and perform – are unachievable without significant changes.”

“I don’t think people realise how difficult it is for nurse associates to get into [top-up] programmes”

Manana Sakupwanya

Ms Holley spoke about the huge “cost pressure” put on employers in the current funding model and called on whoever won the next general election to make changes to remedy this.

Also backing the motion, East of England-based nurse Tracey Risebrow said apprenticeship employers were “struggling” to pay for existing backfill costs.

“Until people sort this out, it’s going to remain an ongoing problem,” said Ms Risebrow.

Manana Sakupwanya, a London nurse, added her support for amendments to funding and said that she, too, had seen prospective apprentices turned away due to rules and criteria.

“I don’t think people realise how difficult it is for nurse associates to get into [top-up] programmes,” she said.

Ms Sakupwanya added that organisations were unable to fund practice assessors and supervisors, as well as backfill.

“This needs to change, and we need change,” she said.

Speaking about the need to support NHS employers but also smaller apprenticeship providers such as charities and community interest companies, advanced nurse practitioner Jennifer Charlewood said: “For really small organisations, it’s very difficult.

“It would be helpful for them to have more support, and possibly look if there’s spare funding to do backfilling for smaller organisations.”

The motion was carried overwhelmingly by voting members at the RCN event.