Local MP, Maria Miller, visited Basingstoke Hospital to hold a roundtable discussion with student nurses. The students, on placement at the hospital, came from a number of universities in the region, including Winchester, Portsmouth, Surrey and BPP.
Maria said: “Our Hospital Trust is playing an important part in making sure we have a strong NHS for the future, by making training the next generation of nurses and health workers a priority. Thanks to the students I met, who took the opportunity to brief my on their training courses and their passion for the healthcare profession, with particular enthusiasm for being back to in-person training. It is vital that hospitals, like ours in Basingstoke, properly nurture and develop these trainees, to ensure they can continue to uphold the NHS’s fantastic standards of compassionate care in the future.
“We all know how tough the last two years have been on the NHS, and how important it is we recruit and retain nursing staff to meet those challenges going forward. I want everybody with the qualifications and commitment to undertake these degrees to have the chance to do so. The introduction of the new Nursing Degree Apprenticeship and nursing associate roles, some of whom I met today, are important steps on this recruitment drive. But it is also key we do everything possible to retain our current nursing cohort, and I was encouraged to hear that supporting the mental health of their staff is an ongoing focus of HHFT.”
