Nursing Career - Diploma/Degree?

pondie1

can anyone help me with the bursary,my daughter was sent a basic entitlement £5983 a year,we are on benefitsno other income,when assessment has came it says total bursary nil,shes doin nursing diploma mental health section,has anyone came across this,on calculator on bursary site she gets full amount,wish it wasnt saturday so i could get in touch with someone about it,we are worried sick about this as she has started and enjoyin course,would hate it if she had to quit due to this

r-ingram

Hi Pondie

I am not entirely clear what has happened, are you saying she IS getting the £5983? If so, that is probably her entitlement in full. If she is not getting that then something has gone wrong, which can and should be sorted urgently.

As I understand it a diploma student will get the full non-means tested bursary of £5983. There should be no course fees, so the deal is really the equivalent of nearly £9000 per year (when compared to "normal" - non-nursing students). Having the means-tested bursary usually (always?) means they can't have student loans or other means-tested bursaries that are otherwise available. Usually, students will consider the non-means tested bursary the better deal, financially, however most of the student nurses I know of do extra work to make ends meet; not ideal, but very common (and indeed common to all students on all sorts of courses that come from less than wealthy backgrounds, including my own son who is doing engineering. He does one or 2 shifts per week in care homes, via an agency. This makes all the difference between a struggle and relative comfort).

If she changed to the degree she could get a means-tested bursary, and she should get the maximum, but this probably would not be better than what she gets now, but she could access student loans, and maybe other funds / bursaries offered by her institution, but it is unlikely that she will be better off.

Your daughter's institution should have student advisors that can help her ensure she understands the system and make sure she gets all she is entitled to.

Please hang in there - I am sure things can be resolved. There are worthwhile rewards in the end!

deddogblues

r-ingram wrote:

Some Universities (well, one I know of) make you specify dip or degree at the start, and whilst both are taught together, the bursary only goes with the former. However (maybe with a bit of discrete informatiom from staff???), some students just register for the diploma (knowing they want the degree) and transfer in year 3.

This is also the case at Nottingham university.
My daughter has just begun her second year studying mental health and was recently notified that she has reached the standard to continue working towards the extra credits required for the degree.
One thing worth thinking about (apart from the bursary) is if you struggle with the work at degree level it is still possible to qualify at diploma level.

r-ingram

Pondie

have a look at Access to Learning Funds which may be available via your daughter's uni.

pondie1

my daughter has got no bursary according to letter,i hope its a letter misprint,she is doing diploma and no other income as she doesnt yet know when her placements are gonna be

Snow_Angel

KayEdwards wrote:

I am relocating to Devon in February to be near friends, so will keep my eyes open for something down there. If anyone works in a hospice in Devon where they have a job perhaps they could let me know! Well you never know where the MSE's are!

Kay

Hi Kay

I can't advise re hospices but I can give you some thoughts on the hospitals situation .... quite simply it is a disaster. (Incidentally I'm a physio student in Plymouth and due to graduate this year - 93% of the UK's physio students from last year are without work ... about 1600 newly-qualified physios).

There are 2 cohorts per year of nursing students graduating each year from Plymouth uni and, as yet, NONE of the September graduates have work, with more graduating in January.

The Cornwall and Devon NHS trusts are financially in a terrible state (wonder how much that has to do with the inability of our trusts in the West country being unable to claim money back for treating tourists from their home address trusts? - a crazy government oversight). Many medical posts are currently frozen in the hospitals down here, with closures of wards and compulsory redundancies. All of these are going to make the situation worse for newly qualified staff as the current staff are being re-located and many posts are being advertised as internal only.

Sorry to be doom and gloom but that's the way it is and that's what I'll be facing in 10 months time.

Good luck - if they have any sense they'll snap you up with a shot .. you sound dedicated, committed, motivated and hard-working - essential qualities for any health professional. :A

Glad

DonkeyKong77 wrote:

Hello

On behalf of my little sister....strictly this is not a moneysaving issue, but i guess it does have financial implications.

Currently, she is at college, last year doing A2's i think, she know's she wants to go into nursing, or at least is interested, but she doesn't know the best way to go about it.

From what she's said, i understand there are 2 routes, doing a Diploma or a Degree, but we don't know the actual difference between them, in terms of "at the end of the day" scenario, i.e. there are those that are saying do the degree (purely because it sounds better! - i don't think that's the best advice i've heard), but by completing both aren't you then a qualified nurse? Does it have employability implications, whether you do a diploma or a degree? etc

It hasn't had in the past but it will have implications in the future,

Diploma students may get taken on in a junior post but most posts that ask for a couple of yrs experience also now ask for a degree, so to move on you will need a degree, some employers will allow you time to study for a degree and even pay the fees but in the present financial situation that is becoming rarer and rarer with some having their funding stopped midway through a degree,
therefore it makes sense to the employer to try to employ nurses in the first instance who already have a degree.

So career wise it makes sense to go for the highest qualification you can,
I can't comment on the financial aspect , although if to move forward your sister would need a degree, which she may have to fund herself, that financial cost should be included in her present choice, it's hard work studying for a degree when working full-time.

I qualified as a Registered Nurse in 1986 and am currently a Nurse Practitioner, as part of my post I am required to do a Masters degree and this seems to be the way nursing is going, the Nursing Diploma is slowly being phased out and by the time she qualifies it may be she will be asked to do a degree to even get an interview.

pondie1

thanks everyone for help regarding daughters bursary,got letter today (after endless phone calls monday)saying full bursary paid,i had put degree on form instead of diploma,silly me

DonkeyKong77

Hi

Been a while since i posted, but have been trawling options and uni open days at the one's she is interested in going to.

I know there's a Times Uni Guide/Table but can't find it online, maybe it's ony aailable at careers services/libraries etc but if anyone has seen it onlin, could you post a link to it? Thanks!

Also, at this end, i think she is going for a diploma and tnen topping that up to a degree, finances probably have a little to do with it i imagine bt if that what's she wantd to do that's she is going to do.

One distinction that i have noticed is the way in which uni's are assessing their students, apparantly in the past the emphasis was on coursework related assessment, but at some they are making an immediate shift towards exam-based ones, and feel that ost other uni's will follow, as athere is a huge threat of plagarism which has gt to the point of re-thiniig the way in which students are assessed (probably across the board in terms of all subjects, but also in nursing).

I ask the query about the times uni table, in relation to nrsing, as the uni's can make claims that they are in the top 5 etc according to a table and well i haven't seen it

Alos, something that comes into consideration is the hospitals at which placements are likely to take place, some probably have more of a reputation than others, but can't find that info anywhere either, other than talking to the tutors at uni's.

klaw3

DonkeyKong77 wrote:

Hello

On behalf of my little sister....strictly this is not a moneysaving issue, but i guess it does have financial implications.

Currently, she is at college, last year doing A2's i think, she know's she wants to go into nursing, or at least is interested, but she doesn't know the best way to go about it.

From what she's said, i understand there are 2 routes, doing a Diploma or a Degree, but we don't know the actual difference between them, in terms of "at the end of the day" scenario, i.e. there are those that are saying do the degree (purely because it sounds better! - i don't think that's the best advice i've heard), but by completing both aren't you then a qualified nurse? Does it have employability implications, whether you do a diploma or a degree? etc

Financially, i think non-means tested bursaries are available for the Diploma, and smaller grants are available for degrees, whilst with degrees, you can also apply for a student loan, which i don't think you can with the diploma. I think she's conscious of the fact that she doesn't want to burden "the family" with money worries, as we don't fall into the lowest threshold categories, but we aren't necessarily rolling in it.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks and sorry for the length of the post!

If she works for a hospital Trust that is working in partnership with the Open University she may be able to apply for a secondment to do a nursing diploma and get paid a monthly wage at a healthcare assistant rate instead of a bursary. This route would take 4 years. She could then top up her credits to gain the degree if she wanted to at a later date independantly. Degrees are usually required for senior roles in nursing.