Nursing students receive lessons in political activism during their taxpayer-subsidized training, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Trainee nurses can undertake an ‘advocacy, activism and resistance’ module at the University of Essex as part of their degree.
The eight-week course features lectures by Holly Turner, a left-wing activist who has urged NHS nurses to reject the government’s pay offer and launch new strikes.
The skilled nurse, co-founder of the NHS Workers Say NO group, has called a general strike, saying the strikes are designed to put ‘Tories on the ropes’.
After a lecture last week, Ms Turner posted a photo of herself in front of a PowerPoint slide titled “Nurse Activism.” Points included ‘Political activism for health workers complements clinical practice’.
The eight-week course features lectures by Holly Turner, a left-wing activist who has urged NHS nurses to reject the government’s pay offer and launch new strikes.
The qualified nurse, co-founder of the NHS Workers Say NO group, has called a general strike, saying the strikes are designed to put “Tories on the ropes”.
NHS Workers Say has NO links to Extinction Rebellion, and Ms Turner has expressed her “solidarity” with former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, describing him as “our biggest defender and supporter”. She has regularly campaigned with far-left figures on the Labor benches, including John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon and Zarah Sultana.
Students must take either the Activism module or a Public Mental Health course as part of their three-year undergraduate degree at the university.
Trainee nurses qualify for taxpayer-funded grants of £5,000 towards annual course fees of £9,250.
The course states that students will learn to ‘actively resist… practices and policies that have detrimental consequences for groups of people’.
Among the ‘learning outcomes’ of the module is the need to ‘interpret the consequences of legislation, public policies and health and social care policies based on people’s experiences and identify mechanisms that can be used to challenge public policy and influence policy change’.
Another requires students to ‘demonstrate the development of political awareness and courageous, compassionate person-centered activism and solidarity with people and colleagues’. The course will be taught by ‘keynote speakers, researchers and people with lived experience’.
The University of Essex denied that students were being taught to oppose government policy.
In a dispute over wages, members of the Royal College of Nursing went on strike last year for the first time in its 106-year history. It has organized a series of strikes since then. In May several other NHS unions agreed to a 5 per cent pay rise, along with a lump sum payment, but both RCN and Unite members voted against the deal.
However, the nurses’ strikes ended last month after the RCN, the largest nursing union, failed to win enough votes to take further action.
Following this, NHS Workers Say did NOT issue a statement saying: ‘The fight for fair pay and to save our NHS is certainly not over. Our task now must be to continue to organize in our workplaces, stand together as an NHS workforce… and come back ready to fight harder than ever for the next round of pay.
‘We support our young doctors and consultants and all the workers who go on strike, solidarity!’
Dr Caroline Johnson, a consultant and Conservative MP on the Commons Health Select Committee, said: “Nursing students are there to learn how to take good care of people, not to be taught political activism by left-wing individuals.” . It is very concerning that students are being asked to choose between this course and such an important topic as public mental health.’
The university said Turner was not paid for his guest lecture. She added: ‘We are not teaching students to oppose government policy, but to advocate for patients and the interests of those with health needs that may be underserved.
‘The courses this module contributes to have been approved by the regulatory body, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, as well as our own rigorous processes.’
