£3,000 enticement for men to train as nurses to tackle growing gender gap

♦ Men are being offered a £3,000 sweetener to entice them to train as nurses. Coventry University said the plans aim to “address a growing gender imbalance” on such courses.

Men account for just 10 per cent of the total nursing students placed at UK universities, and the gender gap is growing. Nurses said some male patients preferred to be treated by another man.

The £30,000 fund, paid for by the National Express Foundation, is thought to be the first created specifically for men taking nursing and healthcare courses in UK higher education.

Last year 2,800 men were accepted on to nursing degrees compared to 26,000 women. However, numbers of applications have fallen this year, since the abolition of NHS bursaries, which mean trainees have to pay £9,000 tuition fees and take out loans for living expenses.

Rob James, academic dean for the faculty of health and life sciences at Coventry University, said: “We support all initiatives taking positive action to address unequal gender representation in any subject discipline, and this bursary does so across healthcare training.

“While there’s a lot being done nationally and at Coventry to encourage women into sciences and engineering, we hope this initiative will lead the way in addressing the persistent low proportion of men working in many healthcare professions.”

Colin Harrison, 32, from Solihull, one of only two men in his year on the learning disabilities nursing degree at the university, said: “Nursing is very much seen as a women’s profession but for many patients, especially male, to be treated by another man or to see men on the wards can be very important. I think the reaction to what I do as a man is very much a generational thing and it’s changing.”

The bursaries will be open to students applying from October.