We care for patients. Please care for us. We are NHS students training to save lives.

Thousands of NHS student nurses are leaving because they can’t afford childcare.

This isn’t just unfair—it’s a threat to the future of the NHS.

👉 Sign & Share to demand change:

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to urgently request a review and substantial increase in childcare support available to nursing students. The current system is not only inadequate but is actively contributing to the ongoing workforce crisis by forcing capable, committed students out of training due to financial and practical childcare barriers.

Childcare has been repeatedly identified as a major cause of withdrawal from nursing programmes. Recent reporting from The Independent highlights that “thousands of student nurses and midwives drop out or don’t train due to exclusion from free childcare schemes”. This is one of the clearest indicators to date that childcare inaccessibility is directly driving attrition within the profession.

The Royal College of Nursing’s 2025 attrition research reinforces this, identifying several structural factors that disproportionately affect mature students — who make up a significant proportion of nursing cohorts. These include:

• ​Long, inflexible placement hours

• ​Lack of access to funded childcare

• ​High childcare costs compared to student income

• ​Unpredictable shift patterns

• ​Limited family support, particularly for lone parents

National attrition rates for nursing students currently sit between 21–25%, and childcare is consistently cited as one of the top financial and practical reasons for leaving. 

The scale of the issue is undeniable: thousands of potential nurses are lost each year because the system fails to accommodate the realities of student parents.

The inequity within current childcare policy is stark. For example:

• ​Children aged nine months and older receive 30 funded hours only if both parents are in paid employment. Student nurses — despite working full-time hours on unpaid clinical placement — are excluded from this entitlement, even when they have a working partner.

• ​Many students are deemed ineligible for the childcare grant due to household income thresholds that fail to reflect the true cost of nursery and wraparound care.

• ​Students claiming Universal Credit cannot access the 85% childcare support available to working parents, as they are categorised as “non-working” despite undertaking mandatory full-time placements.

• ​Even those who do receive the childcare grant often receive as little as £400 per year, an amount that does not cover even a single month of childcare for one child.

• ​Previously, student parents could combine tax-free childcare (20% government contribution) with funded hours, but this support has been removed, leaving families significantly worse off.

These policies create an impossible situation. Nursing students are expected to complete long, unpaid placement hours, often leaving full-time employment to do so, while simultaneously being denied the childcare support afforded to working parents. 

Many attempt to work part-time alongside their degree out of sheer necessity, but this is neither sustainable nor safe — academically, financially, or in terms of wellbeing. In many cases, it is simply not feasible, particularly when employers cannot accommodate the unpredictable and inflexible nature of placement scheduling.

The result is predictable and deeply damaging: students with children are being pushed out of training, not because they lack ability or commitment, but because the system is structurally incompatible with parenthood. This loss of future nurses directly undermines efforts to address national staffing shortages and compromises the long-term stability of the NHS workforce.

I am therefore requesting that childcare support for nursing students be urgently reviewed and expanded. This should include, but not be limited to:

• ​Eligibility for funded childcare hours equivalent to those available to working parents

• ​A realistic and meaningful childcare grant that reflects actual childcare costs

• ​Access to Universal Credit childcare support for students undertaking mandatory placements

• ​Restoration of tax-free childcare eligibility

• ​A national commitment to ensuring that no student is forced to withdraw from training due to childcare barriers

Supporting student parents is not an optional enhancement — it is an essential investment in the future of the nursing profession. Without decisive action, the current system will continue to exclude those who are already balancing extraordinary responsibilities in order to serve the public.

I urge you to address this issue with the seriousness it demands.

Respectfully, 

Matthew Jewitt

Class Representative

Speaking on behalf of the Practice‑Based Nursing Students

University of Central Lancashire

#CareForCarers #ChildcareForNHSStudents #SupportFutureNHS