University of Portsmouth want to recruit A-Level students through clearing on to nursing courses

Chief nursing officer for England Ruth May is urging pupils going through clearing to sign up for the profession and Dr Isobel Ryder, associate head of nursing, in the School of Health and Care Professions at the University of Portsmouth, says the team want to get more students through clearing on their adult nursing and mental health nursing courses

Dr Ryder said: ‘Nursing provides diverse career opportunities and in light of the NHS Long Term Plan and the need to transform how health care is provided, we would strongly encourage young people to consider it as a future career.

‘We are actively looking to recruit more students through clearing on to our current nursing courses. We recognise that this is a particularly stressful time, in an already difficult year and anticipate that some students may be anxious and concerned following receipt of their grades.’

It comes after NHS England figures showed there were 223 nursing, midwifery and health visitor vacancies at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, 142 at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and 60 at Solent NHS Trust, all at the end of March, the latest data available.

In a move to benefit patients, staff and students, Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust was awarded university hospital status last month and teams will be working on further improvements in research and education with the University of Portsmouth.

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Dr Ryder added: ‘We already worked closely with PHU as they are a key practice learning partner for student placements in our nursing and allied health courses. Our locality model for placements means that students are placed in the geographical area in which they live and this is important as many students will seek employment in the same area on successful completion of their course.

‘We envisage that all of these links will be strengthened as we move forward and work increasingly closely to develop the future nursing workforce and engage in more patient-focused research activity.’

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