Responding to a new upfront payment system for nursing student expenses, Executive Director for RCN England Patricia Marquis, said:
“For so long, nursing students have been forced to use their limited funds to pay for travel to mandatory clinical placements, only to wait weeks and often months to get anything back at all. Today’s announcement of an upfront payment system is recognition of just how inflexible and unfair that process is, and the RCN’s demands for change.
“These changes to expenses claims will provide some welcome financial relief to those studying to join our brilliant profession, but ministers shouldn’t stop there. Even after today, poverty will remain a daily reality thanks to inadequate financial support, while a toxic tuition fee system leaves graduates in eye-watering debt and with some unable to secure a job at all.
“A comprehensive new package of financial support is needed for student nurses, as is bold reform to a broken tuition fee model and measures to ensure all nursing graduates can secure employment.”
Ends
Notes to editors
Cost-of-living crisis: students and early-career nurses need urgent support - RCN 19 May 2026
Cost-of-living crisis: students and early-career nurses need urgent support
