Medical Madness: King’s Flip-Flops on Child Nursing & Midwifery Placements

Recently, Midwifery and Child Nursing students received an email saying that 6 first-year students will have to disrupt their studies. The email blamed this disruption on “unprecedented nationwide demand for places on nursing programmes.” 

According to the email, students were given the choice to volunteer to forfeit their place. The email stated that “From those who volunteer, we will choose six students, with preference given to those who already have some healthcare experience”. It also mentioned that the students who forfeited their place would be given £2000 as compensation. These six students will then have to disrupt their studies in January 2021 and rejoin in January 2022. Further details of the students’ reimbursement and expectations are attached in screenshots of the email below, sent to students studying Child Nursing. 

This decision comes after the debacle of A-Level results in England and the subsequent acceptance of all offer-holders by King’s.

Students from all faculties met this news with outrage. Louise Truman, a third-year History and Spanish student, posted the following on her LinkedIn:

Truman’s post struck a nerve with not only students at the university but people from all over the world. Her post currently has 2900 reactions, 94 comments and over half a million views. The official King’s College London LinkedIn page replied to her post 2 days ago, issuing a formal media statement:

The Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care also provided a statement to Roar about the same. The statement said: “Nationwide, there has been an unprecedented demand for places on the nursing and midwifery programs. As a result, we communicated to year one students enrolled on our pre-registration BSc Child Nursing and BSc Midwifery programmes that there was a small shortfall of placements on each programme. However, since we spoke to students, we have continued to work with Health Education England and our partner healthcare organisations and can now confirm that we have secured placements for all students on these programmes.

“We are very sorry for any upset or stress this may have caused, and we are continuing to support students as they settle back to their studies and prepare for their practice learning.” 

Truman promptly updated her post, with a comment: “Following backlash from various sources King’s have just withdrawn plans to discontinue education of select first-year midwifery/child nursing students! Thanks for all the shares and support, it has made a difference!!” 

Roar News spoke to Truman, asking her if she felt her post helped, and she replied saying, “I think with over a quarter of a million views, and the engagement the LinkedIn the community, [it] created a certain pressure on King’s to reverse a hugely unfair policy. Whilst I’m sure King’s would deny having their hand forced by a social media post, it was only after the post gained significant attention that King’s reversed the policy.”

All students will now be able to continue their first-year without disruption. However, this brings King’s under fire once more over the mismanagement of the welfare of students.