Hansard

Thank you. It is a pleasure to appear in front of the committee virtually. I am standing in for Rachel Taylor, who is, unfortunately, unable to make it to the meeting. I have a statement to read, after which I will be happy to take questions. It is important to open about the premise of the campaign, which is something that we all believe: Scotland fundamentally values diversity and the development of a safer, stronger and more inclusive society, where everyone can live in peace and realise their potential. As a society, we recognise that everyone should be provided with a fair opportunity to reach that potential. However, student paramedics in Scotland are faced with a challenge. It is a challenge that students face after competing with hundreds of others to achieve a spot in a highly competitive area of study, and one that creates a barrier to achieving the goal that they work so hard for. Student paramedics face the barrier of financial restrictions. Financial restrictions should not pose a barrier to higher education in Scotland. Ordinarily, students would be able to work part time during their studies and full time during the summer months. However, like student nurses and midwives, student paramedics do not have that ability, because we must complete more than 2,500 unpaid placement hours to complete our course. That makes students from a paramedic science background seem unreliable to businesses and employers. Those who are able to get a job are working a huge amount—in their studies, their placement and their job. The Scottish Government created the nursing and midwifery bursary to make nursing a more accessible field of study, and to help to fill the acute occupational shortage that is faced by NHS Scotland, as is highlighted by publicly available reports. Paramedics are on the same shortage occupation list, which is published by the Scottish Government, and are on the United Kingdom Government's shortage occupation list. Paramedic studies and nursing studies are similar, although the courses differ somewhat, but despite the similarities between the courses, the support that is received is not similar. For example, an adult learner over the age of 25 who studies nursing or midwifery would receive a minimum of 900 per cent of the support that a student paramedic of similar age gets, based on the basic non-repayable bursary alone. The Scottish Government has brought the nursing and midwifery bursary up to £10,000 of financial support per year, as of academic year 2020-21. None of that is repayable, which allows student nurses and midwives to enter their new career path debt free. We believe that that difference in funding does not reflect the Scottish Government’s faith and beliefs, and that student paramedics should also receive that kind of excellent support in order to avoid facing personal austerity. The similarities are evident—a demanding schedule and a desperate need to increase numbers in the workforce apply to nurses, midwives and paramedics alike. With an excellent support system already in place for student nurses and midwives, it seems obvious that the next logical step for the Scottish Government would be to extend that support to student paramedics. The Scottish Ambulance Service is severely understaffed and the in-house training that ambulance technicians can undergo to train as paramedics is soon to become redundant. Previously, becoming a paramedic was an occupational route; however, the professional standards that are set by the Health and Care Professions Council have changed and will, from 1 September 2021, require all new registering paramedics to have an HCPC-approved degree from one of five Scottish universities. Our campaign is already fully supported by several ambulance service workers unions, including the GMB, Unison and Unite. Their members know better than anyone else how desperately the service needs more staff, because they are the staff of the service. We want to become life-savers and care-givers—the people on whom you know you can count in the hour when you most need help. We are ready and willing to take on the challenges of the work, and to dedicate our lives to helping others, and we are asking for help in achieving that. It is not only the trade unions that support our campaign—we also have support from the College of Paramedics, which is the national professional body that represents all paramedics across all four nations of the United Kingdom. Its chief executive, Tracy Nicholls, was one of our earliest supporters, and we are really proud that the professional body also backs our campaign for student paramedics in Scotland to get a bursary. It does not stop there. We also have the backing of the National Union of Students in Scotland, which recognises the large amounts of placement work and study that make paid work inaccessible for student paramedics. Since we launched our campaign, the response has been fantastic. We now have the backing of all but one party in Holyrood: the Pay Student Paramedics campaign is supported by the Scottish Greens, the Scottish Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Labour. We have backing from the trade unions, the professional association for paramedics, NUS Scotland and four political parties in Scotland. The Scottish Government states that student paramedics already have several aspects of their course paid for, including tuition fees and occupational health checks. That is true, but nurses and midwives also receive that support, and are better supported than student paramedics, on top of that. Creating a student paramedic bursary or matching us with the existing nursing and midwifery bursary would open the doors to so many more caring and committed people who want to become paramedics. Recruitment is difficult and the job is tough, but the call for more paramedics now, and for the future, is something that the Scottish Government should be striving to answer. That is why we are pleading for change and asking the Scottish Government to establish a bursary for student paramedics that is equal to the support that nursing and midwifery students in Scotland currently receive. We believe that that would, in turn, strengthen our national health service for generations to come.