The RCN UK Students Committee has written to NHS England and the Chief Nursing Officer for England Duncan Burton calling for improvements to nursing recruitment practices.

The committee says nursing graduates have been left “stacking shelves” amid a shortage of NHS roles and have been blocked from at least a third (33%) of entry-level nursing jobs in England last month.   

You can add your signature to this letter, too.

An urgent plan from health leaders and the Westminster government is needed to ensure this year’s nursing graduates don’t face unemployment, the RCN says.  

This is what the letter is demanding:  

• an end to band 5 job descriptions requiring post-registration experience, and funded first posts with preceptorship, sufficient for each year's qualifying cohort 
• published data on band 5 vacancies and advertising across England, broken down by field and region, including the proportion of unfilled posts never advertised 
• workforce planning aligned with university recruitment in the forthcoming 10-year workforce plan, with enough funded posts to deliver the shift towards care closer to home, and specific protection for learning disability, mental health and children's nursing 
• reversal or mitigation of the Strategic Priorities Grant cut, with supplementary funding to retain nursing academics 
• a published plan to close the gap between nursing graduates and funded posts before the next cohort qualifies.

We believe no nursing graduate should complete their degree without a clear route into employment when demand is rising and nursing vacancies remain unfilled across health and care.  

Alongside the Students Committee letter, the RCN has also set out a series of policy proposals focused on ensuring this year's nursing graduates can access employment. 

These include prioritising new graduates for bank shifts, and then guaranteeing those graduates a substantive nursing role. For those graduates who wish to move to access a job, we’re demanding centralised relocation funding. 

The upcoming NHS 10-year workforce plan and the band 5 job review in England are critical opportunities to fund the right number of nursing posts, based on patient need. 

Sophie du Plessis, RCN Students Committee member and a nursing student at King’s College London, said: “I wasn’t expecting to walk straight into a job, but it was so disheartening to see rejections appear in my inbox… I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about leaving nursing a few times, and I have both considered and applied for roles outside the profession.  

“We’ve all witnessed and experienced just how understaffed nursing is. It’s painfully evident on almost every shift I have worked, yet the funded posts to employ us do not exist.”  

In the RCN’s recent Last Shift Survey, more than two-thirds of nursing staff in the UK said staff shortages were forcing them to make difficult decisions about prioritising care, while one in five said there was a “high risk” of harm to patients.  

But despite these pressures and more than 20,000 full-time equivalent nursing posts being unfilled in the NHS in England alone, registered nurses are moving abroad, and others are leaving the profession altogether.  

Patricia Marquis, Executive Director for RCN England, said: "Nursing students are the future of the workforce and patients need them in post. Services are being pummelled by record demand right now, yet the next generation is facing unacceptable barriers to joining our safety-critical profession. 

“Workforce planning across education and health needs to be based on patient need, not tightening budgets, and the upcoming workforce plan is a critical opportunity to get this right. It is unacceptable for band 5 jobs to be advertised as unsuitable for new graduates and employers need to look again in the upcoming job review.” 

We’ll continue to campaign for action while supporting newly registered nurses into employment.  

Add your name to the Students Committee‘s letter calling for action to improve employment opportunities for newly registered nurses. The more people who sign, the stronger our collective call for change will be.