A WORDSLEY student recently attended a protest at Westminster to highlight the five-figure debt that aspiring nurses are being forced to bear.

Valerie Deeley, a first-year student at Worcester University, says she will be around £80,000 in debt by the time she is fully qualified.

The 26-year-old is determined to follow in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother – both nurses – but is part of the first year group since a bursary for students was taken away.

Valerie said: “I didn’t think it would be this hard but I want to be a nurse – I’m passionate about being a nurse.

“Teachers get about £26,000 a year – they’re focussing on teachers but what about health care?

“We just want support. We’re doing it because we care. In ten years if nothing is done we’re not going to have any nurses to look after us.”

Valerie has had to sign on for bank shifts at Russells Hall Hospital – in addition to an upcoming work placement and studying for exams – because student finance is not enough.

She attended the protest in London along with several other students, to, in Valerie’s words, ‘try to get our voices heard’.

Valerie added: “Even with an apprenticeship wage we would be better off.

“We're not just working on the job, we're learning when we get home. We’re mentally and physically exhausted.

“After a 7am to 7.30pm shift we have to come home and do online study and write reports. And I'll be doing bank shifts as well.”

Valerie already has a degree in sound engineering and production from Birmingham City University last year but decided to switch career paths to nursing.

With the debt from that course, plus the nursing figure, she estimates she will be £80,000 to £90,000 in debt when she finishes.

During her trip to Westminster, she met Dudley South Conservative MP Mike Wood, who sympathised: “We are trying to make sure the support is there.

“If people are right for nursing, if they are committed and dedicated, we don’t want finance to be an obstacle.

“I was really pleased to meet Valerie and to listen to her concerns and to pass those views on to ministers.

“The reason the rules were changed was to remove the artificial cap on the number of nurses able to be trained.

“But there is a big question around the issue of tuition fees and there is a strong argument for those fees to be reduced for fields such as nursing.”

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Jeremy Hunt was invited to meet the students to discuss the implications of the removal of the NHS bursary and the implementation of student finance but he did not attend.