To think student nurses/midwives should be paid at least an apprentice wage for placements?

[tinkersfig]

Or preferably minimum wage?

Im desperate for a career change and have always felt a pull towards midwifery. I love the science behind conception, labour and birth as well as having the emotional pull to care for women that their most vulnerable.

But as a would be mature student, it's impossible to be out of an earning role for 3 years, then no guarantee of a job at the other end of the degree. My husband earns £30k pa so no chance of a maintenance loan.

If students were paid for their placements, after all they are grafting as well as learning, surely more mature students would apply for the degree and this would massively help with the understaffing?

Seems such a catch 22 situation.

I really wanted to do my midwifery degree a few years, similar situation to you with money etc I also have 3 children. I could never afford to I'm working full time and we just wouldn't manage without two full time incomes.

I don't know about midwifery but students can do in apprentice in nursing and get paid.

I've done 2 years as a student nurse and left. The placements can be utterly awful - it so much depends on where you are and who you have supervising you. As a student you are seen by many as the lowest form of labour on the ward (I've had healthcare workers say to my face "God not ANOTHER student. You lot are all useless") and a lot of people just don't actually like you because you are a student.

It costs money to go to placement - we get fuel reimbursed at 30p per mile, over the normal journey to uni, but my bug bear is they won't take into consideration the fact that I may only physically be in uni for 2 days a week and placement for 5 as they calculate it daily.

We desperately need good nurses and midwives and for many of my friends it has been a really good move. I couldn't cope with it though. Be very very sure and have support in place!

And Google tells me you can also do an apprenticeship in midwifery.

Should student teachers be paid too on placement. I was basically treated as unpaid supply because schools are so understaffed.

I did my nurse and then midwifery training many years ago and we were paid a wage. Most of our learning was on the wards with just consolidation weeks spent in the classroom. So we worked full time for at least 80% of the time on the wards.

The wage was low but since we were in hospital accommodation which was deducted at source it was all spending money.

Best years of my life in many ways.

The government has made so many mistakes with these professions. Not just with this issue but the dismal retention rates and inability to allow flexibility for the periods in your life when it’s needed.

YANBU

You absolutely can do an apprenticeship in midwifery. Also, if you have another degree, there may be an opportunity to do two year pre-reg masters which I found a lot more manageable. Aside from placements (which is 1000h over the duration of a degree), you will probably only have to be in uni for 3 days a week or so. This means, you can work weekends. Doing bank shifts in the NHS is also a good way to pick up ad-hock shifts without committing to contracted hours.
Ultimately, I agree with you. It would be nice to be paid (We did get paid during lockdown for insurance purposes and it was really helpful.) but the issue is that, as a student, you are not meant to be doing any actual work except what is required to meet your learning objectives. I certainly have never come across a placement where they considered me "the lowest form of labour"... I was not considered labour at all and all my tasks were carefully managed so people didn't just dump their work on me because there was suddenly an extra pair of hands on the ward.

@x2boys @Catza I did not know that you could do an apprenticeship in midwifery! Thank you for pointing this out to me.

Just had a look at my two local universities, no apprenticeship in midwifery, typically.

Even off the the back of knowing this information, I still think those on placement should be paid at least the apprenticeship wage. Surely the learning and practical side of both the FT degree and the apprenticeship are the same? They're both 3 years long as well?

I don't know anything about teacher placements, but If it's the same sort of hours and amount of work as the student nurses, then absolutely.

Ha! This is how nurses were trained. Proper wage, properly part of workforce. Class learning paid for too. Also had subsidised, safe accommodation, and at least 90% of students wanted to nurse rather than just getting a degree.
But that wasn't good enough for some; apparently, nurses 'needed a degree to be taken seriously by doctors', so down that route it went, baby, bathwater et al, thrown out too.
Now fewer and fewer apply, and the attrition rate during the course remains at about 24%, the same as when degree nursing began. This is due to many of the reasons outlined, and because a degree made fuck-all difference to medic's attitude (i.e. if you're good at your job, you're good at your job, degree or not)

Yes they should as it is in the interests of public service.

Nursing has changed significantly since the days of traditional training
They are highly trained professional, s in their own right
No longer hand maiden, s to the Dr
When I did my nurse training in the early 90,s I was one of the first cohorts to to project 2000 ( the first incarnation of Diploma trained nurses) staff complained then thst nobody needed a Diploma
But things change the profession moves on.

Neither I nor any of the nurses I know were Doctor's handmaidens. Such a clichéd trope.
We were highly trained professionals in our own right, and often even trained doctors in August and March when rotations changed.
We also taught patients, relatives, peers and subordinates.
So yes, we can hold our own with the degree and diploma bods, and know very well that the profession has moved on.
It's 'moved on' to the point that Registered nurses on an acute ward can forget to remove someone's TED stockings for 3 weeks so they get device-related nectrotic feet, that keep someone catheterised for so long they lose bladder-tone completely, who don't feed those who need help, who are rude and uncaring...
That's how degree nursing has moved the profession on...

Everyone is entitled to a maintenance loan if eligible for student finance. At £30k your husband's income means you would be at the higher end of the scale for a maintenance loan rather than minimal.

Apprenticeships won't necessarily be advertised by the universities but by the health trusts themselves on the government apprenticeship websites.