***SOS*** Training in hospitals

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 1st Oct 2007

QE II closure threatened, training cuts

The recent removal of ring fencing around NHS education budgets has meant that SHA's are now able to utilise these funds to minimise debts.

In our opinion this de-stabilises the infrastructure in both pre and post registration education. Restructuring within the health service has already had a huge impact upon education and training with many trainers post being made redundant. Many trusts are removing huge amounts of money from these budgets leaving staff with minimal training opportunities and significant reductions in the commissioning of places on both pre and post registration courses

The NMC have standards to support learning and assessment in practice without training teams this puts a huge burden on already overstretched staff, so who can they turn to for support. If the NMC standards are not met then the ability of trusts to provide learner placement and to support the mentors will be endangered.

Health care professionals must keep up their skills and continue to learn new ones in order to benefit patient care. The lack of funding for nurse education creates a vicious circle in both the practice setting and higher education.

We believe that this withdrawal is a short-term fix that will cause long term problems.