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The latest announcements, press releases and media coverage from University Alliance.

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  1. ‘Delivering the Healthcare Workforce of the Future’: University Alliance publishes proposals to help tackle the NHS workforce crisis

    January 31, 2023

    University Alliance, an association of universities which collectively trains 30% of nurses in England, has today (31 January) published a briefing on ‘Delivering the Healthcare Workforce of the Future’. It comes at a time when the NHS is facing a workforce crisis, with over 130,000 vacancies in England and over 46,000 vacant nursing posts – a record high. A key challenge is the need to train more nurses more quickly to the same very high standar…

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    NHS Workforce

  2. UA members awarded over £3million to expand healthcare degree apprenticeships

    October 2, 2024

    The Office for Students (OfS) has allocated over £3.3million to develop healthcare degree apprenticeships, as a result of a successful joint bid led by Middlesex University and supported by University Alliance (UA). The funding, worth £3,381,000, will allow a number of UA members to form the Healthcare Education Consortium. Collectively, they will coordinate the delivery of healthcare degree apprenticeships in order to meet the goals as set out i…

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    UA logo - light blue

  3. University Alliance release ‘Let’s Get Technical: The First 100 Days’ 

    July 26, 2024

    In a new publication, University Alliance has set out a range of impactful priority actions for the government to take in their first 100 days in power. UA’s latest policy briefing ‘Let’s Get Technical: The First 100 Days’ identifies policies that are cost-neutral or low-cost to deliver that could help professional and technical universities deliver the government’s agenda. In partnership with government and industry, University Alliance argue th…

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    'Let's Get Technical: The First 100 Days'

  4. UA joins call for closer departmental alignment between health and education

    June 26, 2024

    Along with the Council of Deans of Health and Million Plus, University Alliance has written to the next government, urging them to establish ‘closer departmental join-up’ to deliver the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan. University Alliance and our colleagues are calling on the incoming government to encourage closer working between educators and departments on issues such as student recruitment, retention, placement provision and employment. As educa…

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  5. University groups call for cross-government health education taskforce

    February 19, 2024

    With the latest UCAS data showing applications are down for medicine, nursing and midwifery courses, leaders from the higher education sector are calling for a new taskforce to effectively deliver NHS England’s Long-Term Workforce Plan. In a jointly-written letter sent to the Secretaries of State for Education and Health, a coalition of university mission groups and educators have called on the government to convene a new ministerial taskforce to…

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  6. University Alliance responds to the latest UCAS application data

    February 15, 2024

    Vanessa Wilson, CEO of University Alliance, has commented in response to the latest UCAS application data, released today (15 January): On the decline of applications for public sector workforce courses, Vanessa Wilson, CEO of University Alliance, said: “The continued decline in applications for subjects like teaching, nursing and midwifery spell trouble for the future of our public sector. A concerted effort to reverse these trends will be requi…

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  7. Letter to the Times: “Nurses’ research time needs to be protected too”

    February 8, 2024

    In a letter to the The Times, University Alliance CEO Vanessa Wilson responds to the Times’ Health Commission. ‘Sir, The ten recommendations of The Times Health Commission are timely, necessary and sensible. Your ninth point makes the case for NHS staff to take part in research, proposing that 20 per cent of hospital consultants and other senior clinicians have 20 per cent of their time protected for research. The same should apply to nursing res…

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  8. Universities, the NHS, and health workforce transformation

    February 5, 2024

    This article was originally published in Wonkhe. Working alongside the NHS requires universities to constantly be adapting. The relationship between universities and the health and social care sector can be described as evolutionary. For decades, nurses were trained directly on wards, with schools of nursing traditionally hosted by individual hospitals. Training began to move towards higher education in the mid-1990s, but it took until 2009 for a…

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  9. ‘Let’s Get Technical’: University Alliance publishes five policy asks for the next Government

    September 29, 2023

    Note: in July 2024, following the election of a new Labour government, University Alliance has published an updated publication Let’s Get Technical: The First 100 Days. This sets out our recommendations for the government’s first 100 days in office, and in the long-term. University Alliance, an association of the UK’s leading professional and technical universities, has today (Friday 29 September) published ‘Let’s Get Technical: How to harness th…

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    Film students photographed - the Let's Get Technical campaign image

  10. University Alliance responds to the publication of the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan

    June 30, 2023

    In response to the publication of NHS England’s Long-Term Workforce Plan, the CEO of University Alliance Vanessa Wilson said: “We are pleased and relieved that this plan has now been published. This will allow universities to commit to more long-term planning and expand their teaching offer. There are challenges that must be overcome to really scale up healthcare education, but we believe our universities have the solutions. We want to work as cl…

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