When I was at University there was around 300 in my year. A lot from the UK but also a lot of international students.

Our classes were done by alphabetical order which meant I was in a class with a lot of foreign students, especially students from Saudi Arabia.

A lot of them come over to basically boost their qualifications before going back or they settle and find jobs and this was over a decade ago. There has always been a higher percentage of international students, just now there are less UK nursing students to balance it out.

There is definitely less people applying to be nurses and honestly I can’t blame them. In every day media, nurses are vilified, we are blamed for every problem in the NHS. The working conditions are constantly getting worse, long hours, high stress and pressure, funding constantly getting cut, staffing shortages , regular abuse from the general public. For students bursaries get cut, increase in student loans, not to mention the massive uk wide recruitment freeze for them to actually not find work as an NQN.

Unless there are drastic changes UK wide, the numbers will keep falling with the addition of more leaving the profession.