Ways into nursing

SIR – How fantastic that the Conservatives have recognised the effectiveness of an apprentice route to registration as a nurse. This is the way I trained in the Sixties, being paid and taking professional responsibility from the moment I put on my uniform as a student nurse.

Our teaching hospital was almost entirely staffed by student nurses and staff nurses in their first year after qualifying, supervised by the ward sisters. We were the workforce – no poaching staff from the EU, and no burden of student debt.

I rejoice that we are going back to an efficient system that should never have been abandoned. Juliet Buckley

London N5