Cash remedy

THE NHS is nothing without the staff who work for it – yet thanks to the Tories, it is desperately short of nurses and midwives.

This is an emergency entirely of the Government’s own making. They were warned when they cut bursaries for student nursing in 2016 that it would make it harder to recruit staff.

Now the consequences are being seen. There are 42,000 vacancies but applications are down 33%. Drop-out rates are also rising as trainees struggle with mounting debts.

That is why hundreds of student nurses descended on Parliament yesterday to demand extra cash to tackle the staffing crisis.

They fear for the health of the NHS and the patients it is there to care for. If ministers want to show they are on the side of the angels, they would bring back the bursaries.