Major Journalism Project - The Pressures on the NHS and Its Staff.
How have the pressures that the NHS faced during the pandemic affected the newest generation of student nurses?
By Aimee McKenna
It has always been a dream for young people to become nurses and doctors, something inspiring to our communities, but how have times changed for them working in a global pandemic?
The pressures that come with NHS care have drastically increased in the last two years, and for many new students the pandemic is all they know - adding to their already stressful life as a student.
For many the workload has increased due to permanent staff being off work sick with Covid, appointments and annual leave - or even burnout - and students have had to do more than what would normally have been expected of them in years leading up to the pandemic.
Student nurse Alice, who is in her final year of university to become a Children's nurse, spoke to me about how she is finding her time on placements and what made her want to become a lifesaver!
Was it your dream to be a nurse from when you were younger, or what made you want to go into it?
"Yeah, just so ever since I was younger, and my older sister is a nurse so it was just like a normal thing to do and I've always wanted to do it."
How have you found it so far, are you enjoying it?
"Yeah, it's good. But we only did about five months and then obviously there was a pandemic so we have missed out on a lot.
"I don't really have anything to compare it to, but it has been good."
Alice did not really get to experience working in a Covid free environment for very long, impacting her experience greatly.
Have you seen any of these pressures like understaffing with working during a pandemic?
"I think that every single placement I have been on has been understaffed. Especially in places like A&E as well, like it's just crazy.
"You see it on TV but when you are actually in there, in person, you realise it is actually worse than you think."
Although, despite the rate of understaffing at hospitals in England there has been an increase in the number of nursing students accepted onto courses since 2020 which gives some hope to the future of the NHS as we slowly come out of the pandemic.
Many could have been inspired by what they have seen the NHS do during the pandemic.
The number of 18-year-olds that have chosen to do nursing has increased by 38% to reach 7,105 since 2019 and those 21 and over is up by over a third since 2019 to reach 17,415, according to UCAS report - Who Are The Future Nurses?
But the pressures that are still in hospitals make many feel exhausted, which is another contributing factor in the lack of staff in addition to other appointments and annual leave.
Has there been any cases of you having to do more work than what was expected of a student, let's say?
"I'd say so. Obviously, things like medication we cannot do alone but things you can do alone, you definitely would be doing more than if it was not understaffed.
"Other jobs as well like healthcare assistants and domestic things, we end up doing sometimes so everyone just goes in together and you're just doing whatever you get told to do basically."
Has there ever been a time where you've just thought it's too much?
"Definitely. After some shifts, you're like 'am I actually going to do this forever?'.
"You never know what's going to come through the door and sometimes you can't even imagine how crazy it's going to get. But you obviously still want to be a nurse."
Alice is hoping that the situation begins to improve in the future as we slowly come back to normality after the pandemic.
"in ten years-time, maybe when it is completely forgotten, it could go back."