Leading nurses have urged the Government to introduce a package of measures to support recruitment in the profession.
It comes after new Ucas figures showed a decline in applications to nursing courses this year.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has called on the Government to use its Budget next month to fund emergency measures in a bid to bolster applications, such as removing student loans for student nurses.
In England, there were 24,680 nursing applicants to higher education providers in January 2024, down from 27,370 applicants 12 months earlier and 33,410 in 2022.
This represents a fall of 9.8% in a year or 26.1% over two years.
In the UK overall, the number of nursing applicants – of all ages and domiciles – fell by 7.4% to 31,100.
Applications to nursing have decreased across all specialisms, but particularly adult nursing and mental health nursing – and the fall in demand is being driven by a reduction in the number of UK mature applicants to courses, Ucas said.
Pat Cullen, general secretary and chief executive of the RCN, expressed her “deep concern about the rapidly deteriorating state of nurse recruitment” in a letter to Health Secretary Victoria Atkins.
