Medical students demand government ‘fix our funding’

Medical students marched on Westminster this week to demand changes to funding for the doctors of the future, who face steep cuts during the crucial years of their studies.

Dozens of medical students met at London’s Parliament Square on 19 March and descended on  the DfE (Department for Education) headquarters calling for the Government to ‘fix our funding’ through a coordinated day of action.

Members of the BMA medical students committee handed their letter to education secretary Bridget Phillipson demanding the Government addresses the drop in funding faced by medical students by ensuring they have access to full student-finance maintenance for the entirety of their courses.

A recent BMA survey of 3,500 medical students found that nine in 10 (90 per cent) say their financial situation has been detrimental to their mental wellbeing.

This follows another survey which found some 43 per cent of medical students have considered leaving or pausing their course owing to financial pressures.

Speaking outside the DfE building, Henry Budden, deputy co-chair, finance, for MSC, explained how graduate medical students such as himself are forced to work long hours on top of their demanding medical education when funding is reduced.

Graduate students on a four-year medicine course are particularly impacted, having already completed a separate degree, they will experience a drop in funding in their second year so experience this shortfall in funding for more years of study.

Mr Budden said: ‘Instead of investing in those willing to dedicate their lives to medicine, our leaders have placed unnecessary financial barriers in our way.’

MSC chair Rob Tucker explained how undergraduate medical students such as himself see funding drop by £6,000 in their final year of study.

Urging the Government to ‘stop the drop’ and ‘fix our funding’ he said: ‘We are clearly unappreciated and hugely undervalued.’

Ohemaa Asare, MSC deputy co-chair for widening participation, explained how essential costs such as electives and equipment can pile extra pressure on medical students’ finances.

She said many medical students ‘end up burnt out before our careers have even started’.

The committee is warning that insufficient financial support is forcing many students to take on additional jobs that are unmanageable alongside the demands of the course.

One third-year medical student at Keele University, Staffordshire, told The Doctor the difficulties in balancing her medical education with a hospitality job on a zero-hours contract.

‘Having to work in med school is brutal, particularly with the unsocial hours that comes with working in hospitality … I was doing a 2am close on a Friday, a 2am close on a Saturday and still trying to fit in a 12-hour day, Monday to Friday – it was completely unsustainable.

‘I did end up going to the doctors in the second year when I ended up failing an exam. It all got a bit too much and they ended up giving me anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants.’

BMA council chair Phil Banfield joined the medical students, who he described as ‘the future of our NHS’, at the rally.

He said: ‘Financial hardship is driving many of you to the point of giving up, financial hardship that my generation did not have to endure.’

Noting how just 5 per cent of medical school entrants come from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds, Prof Banfield said it was reminiscent of ‘the dark ages’ that ‘only the rich can afford to study medicine’.

He said the funding system is ‘not just unfair’ but is ‘recklessly counter-productive’ because it risks so many dropouts and may ‘jeopardise the very future of the NHS’.

‘How can we expect you to focus on saving lives when you’re worried about how to make ends meet,’ said Prof Banfield. ‘If the Government doesn’t fix this, they risk losing talented students right before they qualify. They risk creating a healthcare system that excludes those from less privileged backgrounds.

‘The solution is simple. Fix medical student funding. We can’t lose brilliant minds to financial hardship. Invest now or pay a much higher price in the years to come.’

In a joint statement, MSC deputy co-chairs for finance, Henry Budden and Sophie Mitchell, said: ‘We have listened to the concerns of our fellow medical students and are taking them straight to the door of the Government.

‘The evidence is clear – with even more survey findings highlighting the harmful impact of the current student finance system on medical students’ mental wellbeing, the Government cannot ignore us any longer.

‘It is simply absurd that at a time when there are serious medical workforce shortages, medical students are being faced with such enormous financial barriers to studying medicine.

‘We know that students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds can be more adversely impacted by the drop in funding during years in receipt of the NHS bursary. By failing to fix the funding system, the Government risks alienating and discouraging hardworking students from a diverse range of backgrounds training to be the future doctors of tomorrow.  

‘The Government has it within its gift to drastically improve the financial situation for medical students across the country and now is the time to show us they care.’

(Images credit: Emma Brown)