Category: Health

  • Latest from Belong – students’ health is not OK, and that’s not OK

    Latest from Belong – students’ health is not OK, and that’s not OK

    It’s hard to learn if you’re ill – good health is one of the classic prerequisites to learning.

    But one of the most frustrating things about the debate around student health in the UK is that there isn’t one.

    Anecdotally, poor access to preventative healthcare and health services tends to be justified either by NHS pressure from an ageing population or by expectations that universities should do more with less.

    Both arguments have merit, but they leave the crucial link between health and academic success stuck in that Spiderman meme, while the public and the press blames students for “boozing it up” or “inventing ADHD.”

    Mental health is well, almost over-researched – but health concerns for students go far beyond the usual talking points. Gonorrhoea diagnoses are at record levels, with the UK Health Security Agency identifying students as a key factor, drugs are the subject of many a survey, disordered eating among students is largely ignored, and sleep deprivation seems to be an issue. Some surveys say dental issues are increasingly common – as one expert notes, “dental health is mental health.”

    The question is whether any of these issues are unique to students – and to the extent to which they are, what sorts of policy interventions might address them.

    In the latest wave of Belong, our polling partnership with Cibyl (which our subscriber SUs can take part in for free), we examined everything from general health perceptions and healthcare access to specific areas like sleep quality, alcohol consumption, sexual health confidence, and experiences with the NHS.

    The results come from our early 2025 wave, with responses from 1,055 students across 88 providers. The data has been weighted for gender and qualification type (undergraduate, postgraduate taught, and postgraduate research) to ensure representativeness. There’s also analysis of various free-text questions to illustrate what’s going underneath the headline results.

    Yeah, I’m OK

    First of all, we asked students a standard question used in national surveys asking them to rate their own health. Only 20 per cent of students rate their health as “very good” compared to 48 per cent of the general population.

    Combined figures show that while 61 per cent of students report “good” or “very good” health (compared to 82 per cent in the general population), a full 32 per cent describe their health as merely “fair” – nearly two and a half times the rate in the general population.

    Qualitative comments illuminate what lies beneath. Many students clearly differentiate between their physical and mental wellbeing:

    My physical health is generally good, whereas I have faced some struggles in mental health (which can also at times impact my physical health).

    Physical is usually good but sometimes a little bit hungry after trying to save some food for other days. Mentally I am ok but I don’t fill very fulfilled.

    My physical health is immaculate however my mental health is the worst it’s ever been.

    Several respondents directly connected their health status to the pressures of university life:

    Could be better, I’m finding learning incredibly stressful as part of a full-time job.

    Almost died from an overdose of caffeine trying to work on a essay and had two breakdowns.

    Feel very tired due to uni, aware my health could be better, but do not have the time.

    For others, university has provided structure and support:

    Being at uni has helped me focus more on my self care and mental health to improve

    My health is generally good because I prioritise self-care, balance my studies, part-time work, and rest, and use available support when needed.

    Many respondents described their health as variable and requiring ongoing management:

    I am physically keeping fit, mental health I am working on, some days are better than others.

    My everyday health is a constant battle that I have to take a multitude of medications. I have good days and bad days and am lucky if I get a decent amount of sleep.

    Everyone gets their bad days and good.

    A significant number of students also reported living with chronic physical health conditions or disabilities:

    I’m disabled. I always feel bad.

    I am a full time wheelchair user with ME and fibromyalgia, so I am in a lot of pain and fatigue.

    I had a diagnosis of a rare cancer called Leiomyosarcoma in 2023. The cancer has gone but it’s left me with a whole range of health problems.

    Overall, the narrative accounts reveal complexity – where mental and physical wellbeing are often experienced differently, academic pressures can both harm and support health, daily fluctuations in health status are common, and chronic conditions create persistent challenges that require constant navigation of university life.

    Correlations or causations?

    We wanted to know if there are relationships between health and key elements of student experience. The data shows strong correlations between student health perceptions and their sense of belonging – among students reporting “very good” or “good” health, 85 per cent feel part of a community, compared to just 68 per cent among those reporting “bad” or “very bad” health:

    This pattern extends to whether students feel free to speak – 93 per cent of those with better health feel free to express themselves, compared to only 77 per cent of those reporting poorer health conditions:

    On teaching quality, 91 per cent of students with “very good” or “good” health report positive teaching quality, while 84 per cent of students with “fair,” “bad,” or “very bad” health still rate teaching quality positively:

    Correlation is not causation – though it’s technically possible that poor teaching or poor belonging is making students ill, to the extent that the free text offers clues, it suggests that the causation is the other way around – poor health appears to be robbing students of the ability to take advantage of the academic and social opportunities on offer.

    Are you registered?

    The good news in our polling is that most students (93 per cent) are registered with a GP. The problem is that only 65 per cent are registered near their place of study. A quarter (25 per cent) remain registered elsewhere in the UK, while five per cent maintain registration in another country:

    The qualitative comments reveal several distinct reasons for not registering locally. Many students commute to university and maintain their home GP registration:

    Because I don’t live at uni. I commute. So it would make sense to have my GP in my home town

    As I do not live on campus, it is easier for me to stay registered with my GP, who is closer to home.

    Even students who do live at university often cite proximity to home as a reason not to change registration:

    It’s only an hour to my home town so easier just to stick with them.

    Don’t feel I live far enough away from home to register with another GP.

    Continuity of care emerges as another significant concern:

    If I sign up for a local GP here, I would be de-registered from my home GP. Since I prefer to stay with my home GP for continuity of care and I only need healthcare support when I’m at home, I haven’t registered with a GP at uni.

    Because I am waiting for talking therapies which I can only get if I am registered with a GP in Somerset so registering in Plymouth will take me off of the waiting list.

    I have been on a waiting list for migraine treatments in my home town and don’t want to start again and wait even longer.

    Home GP knows about my disabilities and there back history.

    And some students express concerns about quality of care:

    They are useless.

    I’ve heard some horror stories about the GP here, and when my friend was too sick to eat or sleep, they wouldn’t even talk to her.

    Dental registration shows a more concerning pattern, with a third of students (33 per cent) reporting they are not registered with a dentist at all. Only 17 per cent are registered near their place of study, while 31 per cent maintain registration elsewhere in the UK and 12 per cent in another country:

    Despite the low registration rate, 56 per cent report having had a dental check-up in the past 12 months – almost identical to rates found in the general population, although that’s hardly a corks-popping moment for the country.

    Students cite NHS availability and cost as major barriers:

    There is no NHS dentist available in the county!

    There are no dentist mine is private.

    NHS is underfunded so it’s impossible to access these services. Private dentists are unaffordable.

    It is literally cheaper for me to travel to my country for a dentist appointment where there is healthcare than doing it here.

    Many students also note that dental appointments can be scheduled during visits home:

    Dental care is something that is tended to like every 6 months or so. So it makes sense to just keep the appointments whenever I am back home.

    Only visit once every 6 months so can plan to go home when the appointment is approaching.

    As with GP services, commuting students typically maintain their home dentist:

    I commute rather than live on campus, so it was more convenient to stay with my dentist closer to where I live.

    Loyalty to existing dentists also emerged as a significant factor:

    I’m with an NHS dentist at home and I don’t want to lose my NHS dentist by moving to a different one as it’s difficult to find NHS dentists.

    I go home enough to see my home dentist who has known me for 20 years.

    Can’t get no

    In early April, the long-running British Social Attitudes survey told us that public satisfaction with the NHS had hit a new low – just 21 per cent said they were satisfied with the NHS in 2024, with waiting times and staff shortages the biggest concerns.

    So we wanted to know what students think. In our polling nearly half (49 per cent) reported being either “very dissatisfied” (12 per cent) or “quite dissatisfied” (37 per cent) with the NHS. In contrast, only 31 per cent expressed satisfaction, with a mere three per cent indicating they are “very satisfied”:

    Many respondents expressed frustration with the difficulty of getting appointments and lengthy waiting times:

    12 hours wait time at A&E is scandalous, people die waiting for ambulances, good luck getting an appointment.

    It takes too long to get anything sorted.

    I have waited long periods to have health checks and it has taken months to get in to see anyone.

    Can’t seem to get a same day appointment.

    A significant number attributed NHS problems to systemic underfunding:

    It is underfunded, there is too much stress on all the services so they can’t take care of patients properly.

    It’s massively underfunded and unsupported by the government. The Tories ripped it to shreds.

    As an international student I pay £776 for this shit shower, joke of a country really is.

    It isn’t the fault of the nurses, doctors hospital staff etc. It’s that the NHS is criminally underfunded.

    Many highlighted specific concerns about mental health services:

    You have to be attempting to kill yourself for the NHS to help you with mental health problems.

    I’m diagnosed with anxiety and it’s been the worst mistake of my life I wish I just kept it between me and my therapist they don’t listen to a word I say.

    The NHS cannot take the strain of the sheer number of mentally ill young people.

    Mental health services and waiting times just to have initial appointments are terrible.

    Respondents also expressed frustration with a lack of communication between different parts of the system:

    Nobody talks to each other and waiting lists are long.

    Lack of communication between hospitals, staff members within the same hospital.

    Less continuity of staff – like you’re on a conveyor belt passed along looking at the surface issue – not the deeper.

    Long waiting times and lack of communication between various departments. Over complicated administration processes.

    And some had specific concerns about the quality of care they received:

    When I went to an emergency dentist in the UK, they left something in my tooth that rotted and I had to have the tooth removed.

    I’ve been to 4 different hospitals about my knee which keeps dislocating and popping. They don’t care to be honest.

    A male consultant kept refusing to answer my questions before a medical procedure and complained when I refused to let him touch me.

    I feel like I treat myself rather than being treated.

    Drugs, alcohol and food

    Plenty of press stories surround the idea that Gen Z is more likely to be clean living and teetotal than previous generations. Our polling suggests that 26 per cent of students never consume alcohol – a slightly higher abstention rate than the general adult population, where according to the latest NHS data 19 per cent report not drinking in the past year.

    For those who do drink, consumption patterns are distributed across different frequencies:

    This pattern suggests lower regular drinking among students compared to the general adult population, where 48 per cent report drinking at least once a week. When students do drink, most report moderate consumption (the below graph only includes those who indicated they drink):

    It’s worth noting that 7 per cent of respondents chose not to answer the question about quantity consumed, which may indicate some hesitancy to report higher levels of consumption.

    We also asked about drugs – specifically asking students about illegal drugs or prescription drug misuse within the past month. The results show that a small minority of students (seven per cent) reported using illegal drugs or misusing prescription medications in the past month, a rate much lower than is often perceived.

    Back in 2023 we also carried out polling on disordered eating amongst students, having spotted some pilot polling that the ONS did on the issue the previous year. Little has changed.

    In the ONS work, our 2023 poll and this wave, we used the SCOFF questionnaire – a validated screening tool for detecting potential eating disorders – to assess students’ relationships with food and body image. The results show concerning patterns:

    • Nine per cent reported making themselves sick because they felt uncomfortably full
    • 26 per cent worried they had lost control over how much they eat
    • Eight per cent reported significant weight loss in a three-month period
    • 19 per cent believed themselves to be fat when others said they were thin
    • 19 per cent reported that food dominates their life

    When these responses are analysed according to SCOFF scoring criteria:

    • 49 per cent showed no sign of possible issues (compared to 50 per cent in the ONS national sample)
    • 25 per cent demonstrated possible issues with food or body image (compared to 23 per cent in ONS)
    • 24 per cent showed possible eating disorder patterns (compared to 27 per cent in ONS)

    The findings suggest that the UK student population closely mirrors national trends in disordered eating and problematic relationships with food and body image. The particularly high percentage of students who worry about losing control over eating (26 per cent) and who perceive themselves as fat when others say they’re thin (19 per cent) – and the relationship we found between those issues and mental health in 2023 – suggest significant work to yet be done, that could have very positive impacts.

    No snooze, you lose

    Sleep and rest is a huge part of health. Our results show a mixed picture over quality and quantity. While 47 per cent of students report “very good” (10 per cent) or “fairly good” (37 per cent) sleep quality, nearly a quarter (24 per cent) describe their sleep as “fairly poor” (15 per cent) or “very poor” (nine per cent). More than a quarter (28 per cent) fall into the middle category of “neither good nor poor.”

    When it comes to sleep duration, half of students (50 per cent) report getting six to seven hours of sleep per night on average, with an additional 26 per cent getting eight to nine hours. However, a concerning 21 per cent are sleeping fewer than six hours per night, with 20 per cent getting just four to five hours and one per cent less than four hours.

    The findings show a potential improvement compared to the polling we carried out a year ago, which found students were getting just 5.4 hours of sleep per night on average. Our current data suggests a higher proportion of students are now achieving six-plus hours of sleep – but it’s still not nearly enough.

    The 2024 exercise saw strong relationships between sleep duration and both life satisfaction and anxiety levels. Students getting 8-8.9 hours of sleep reported significantly higher life satisfaction scores (6.9 versus the average of 6.3) and lower anxiety scores (4.7 versus the average of 5.0) compared to those sleeping less.

    Students in that survey clearly recognised the importance of sleep:

    I need more sleep!

    Could probably do with more sleep, just trying to get 8 hours a week would be nice.

    But the qualitative data highlighted several factors affecting student sleep patterns:

    • Academic pressures: “Currently, the workload is too big.”
    • Employment demands: “Being in my overdraft monthly, long hours at work cuts into my sleep time.”
    • Irregular timetables: “What would help? A more consistent timetable.”

    Housing a problem

    Governments love their public policy silos – but one of the things SUs wanted us to look at was the relationship between housing and health. In this data, nearly half of respondents (49 per cent) reported that housing does affect their health – with 27 per cent noting a positive impact and 22 per cent experiencing negative effects:

    Many students reported health concerns related to poor physical conditions in their accommodation:

    Student houses have mold and have usually been untouched from when they were bought 12 years prior. My house has plenty of mold which no doubt hasn’t helped things when I have been unwell.

    I live in a very mouldy flat that I have to spray at least once a fortnight to tackle the mould. It is damp and mouldy, but the landlord just tells me to open a window.

    My window doesn’t open and was reported to reception before I even arrived in September I have gone back to report it to them multiple times and they still haven’t done anything about it. I also do not have an extractor fan which works in my bathroom this means I have no airflow in my room.

    Housing affordability emerged as a significant stressor affecting mental health:

    Every year when my rent is rised it impacts my mental and physical health hugely as it causes me a lot of stress and forces me to cut things that make me feel better.

    It’s Cornwall so the housing situation is abysmal… Landlords and estate agents take advantage of this to a disgusting degree and overcharge students to the point of spending all or the vast majority of your student loan just on rent.

    After rent I have no money. Landlords know how much student loans we get and scalp accordingly.

    The social environment created by housemates significantly influences mental wellbeing, with both positive and negative experiences reported:

    My flatmates are incredibly unclean and disrespectful.

    My housemates are rude and disrespect and leave a mess everywhere and they smoke weed despite me asking them to stop loads. It makes me not want to be at home.

    Although on the positive side:

    My housemates are lovely people to talk to and I get along with them really well.

    I love my housemates, we cook and eat dinner together every day and it’s nice to just hang out.

    Insecurity about housing arrangements creates significant stress:

    I rent privately, so the expensive rent combined with low-quality housing and anxiety around the permanence of my home significantly affect my anxiety.

    I recently had my housing group fall apart and will need to give my ESA up to a friend of my partner in Essex due to inability to find student housing that will allow me to keep her.

    Landlord left us with no heating or hot water for 2 months.

    And some students reported significant benefits from supportive housing environments:

    It has been beneficial moving out of a toxic home environment. I have become very close with a few of my flatmates here.

    I recently got my own place after being in a house where I was abused. It’s more difficult financially but at least I don’t have someone else hurting me on purpose.

    I have found moving to a house away from campus with people I am close with has had a positive effect due to the home/uni balance I now have.

    It’s another classic silo issue. The failure of any of the four governments to cobble up a student housing policy is a housing issue – but it’s also an educational issue and a health issue. And because it’s a student issue, it ends up being an issue that is not handled or planned as an issue by anyone. And so it just gets worse every year.

    Not so free periods

    We were also asked to look at menstruation and sexual health. On the former, the results suggest that most respondents find menstrual products reasonably accessible – save for an important minority:

    When asked whether menstruation impacts their daily life, respondents were fairly evenly split:

    The relatively even division suggests that menstruation-related challenges continue to affect a significant proportion of the student population, potentially influencing their academic performance, social engagement, and overall university experience.

    Then on sexual confidence and health, the results show generally high levels of self-reported confidence:

    The standout is that approximately 18 per cent lack confidence in accessing NHS sexual health services – the highest area of uncertainty among those surveyed.

    The findings present an interesting contrast to a 2021 HEPI survey on sex and sexual health among students. That research found significant variations in consent understanding and confidence levels, particularly when examining school background and gender.

    In that work, privately educated males were a key issue:

    • Only 37 per cent felt “very confident” in understanding what constitutes sexual consent (compared to 59 per cent of students overall)
    • Only 34 per cent were “very confident” in how to communicate sexual consent clearly (versus 47 per cent overall)
    • Only 41 per cent were “very confident” in how not to pressure others for sex (versus 61 per cent overall)

    Our polling in this wave doesn’t have a large enough sample to offer similar demographic breakdowns, but the overall high confidence levels suggest either an improvement in students’ understanding since 2021 or – importantly – potential overconfidence in self-assessment.

    For better or worse

    Finally, we wanted to know whether students’ health had changed since coming to university. While 39 per cent reported their health has improved (with three per cent saying “much better” and 36 per cent “better”), 27 per cent indicated their health had worsened (23 per cent “worse” and four per cent “much worse”) – and a significant proportion (34 per cent) chose not to respond to this question.

    Many students reported deteriorating mental health since beginning their studies:

    Mental health has declined and physical health/pain got worse as well.

    Academic pressure has made me feel depressed.

    My mental health is no better and I have panic attacks at least two times a week.

    Anxiety levels are higher, I feel socially overwhelmed after a day at uni.

    Financial pressures emerge as a significant factor negatively impacting both physical and mental wellbeing:

    I can’t afford a lot of things. I struggle to buy food period products, and other healthcare. I’m inclined to work when I’m sick because I need to cover tuition and rent.

    I can’t afford basic nutrition.

    Many students reported having less time or opportunity for physical activity:

    Too tired to workout/run most days.

    I feel I have less time to exercise. I spend more time on a computer which affects my hands and back.

    I was much more physically active before starting university.

    Changes in eating habits were commonly mentioned as negatively affecting health:

    My diet is a lot worse, and I tend to be generally less healthy.

    I put on a lot of weight due to staying in my room all day and not having enough money to afford a good diet.

    As I am now living alone, so my eating issues have become worse as I am the one to control what I eat – so I will eat nothing for a month, and then gain all the weight back by giving up and binging.

    It’s not all bad news. For those in the “improved” camp, increased physical activity (“I’ve been going to the gym since first year and have really enjoyed doing so”), better nutrition habits (“I have more control and time over my diet”), improved mental wellbeing (“Well at collage I was suicidal but at uni I don’t really have that inkling anymore”), greater autonomy over health choices (“Being more independent and in control of my life has done wonders for my physical and mental health”), and beneficial routines (“The routine has enabled me to keep in touch with my health a lot better”) were all key themes.

    The positive experiences suggest that for a significant proportion of students, university can provide both the freedom and structure to develop healthier lifestyles and improved wellbeing.

    If it was up to me

    When, at the end of the survey, we asked students what they would change about health services if it was up to them, they offered a wealth of practical suggestions.

    Mental health services emerged as a top priority, with clear calls for “more therapy sessions,” “expanded mental health services,” and “shorter waiting times or support whilst on waiting lists.” Many emphasised the need for greater coordination: “Less pressure to do so well academically. Student union need to put more pressure on the uni to allocate funds towards mental health services.”

    Financial barriers to health featured prominently in student concerns. Suggestions included “lowering the cost of the university gym,” “free prescriptions till you finish uni,” and broader recommendations to “improve student finance so that students can afford to eat healthily.”

    Improving access to NHS services was another key theme, with students recommending “a GP on campus perhaps or someone you can talk to before having to go to the GP” and “easier GP registration, shorter wait times for appointments.” Some highlighted specific needs for marginalised groups: “Fast tracking marginalised students who are already forced through forms and waiting list just to access their healthcare.”

    Sexual and reproductive health resources were frequently mentioned, with calls for “free condoms across campus,” “free period products,” and “more information about sexual health/like events centred around that, including sexual health for trans people and using inclusive language.”

    Many also stressed the need for better information and outreach, suggesting “having a known place to access in a casual manner,” “health advice given in more accessible areas,” and “making clear where and how to access it with a focus on helping international students navigate a new system.”

    And several comments addressed broader cultural and systemic issues: “Stop encouraging mid-week drinking, university alcoholism culture is insane”, “More conversations about loneliness, it’s weirdly normalised at uni” and “Address systemic bias in medicine, especially impacting women.”

    An agenda for change

    There are bits of good news – but the big picture that emerges from our findings is stark and troubling. 20 per cent of students reporting “very good” health compared to 48 per cent in the general population is a disparity that would prompt immediate intervention in any other population group. But that problematic place in the policy Venn that students are in – both largely young and belonging to DfE, not DHSC – leaves them ignored. This student offers a damning indictment of a system where basic physiological needs compete with academic demands:

    I literally went to university at the wrong time with how much it currently costs. It’s impossible to concentrate on my studies without the constant fear of how am I going to eat tonight.

    Another speaks of “black mould and damp” while their landlord’s sage advice is to “open a window.” Is this really the backdrop against which we expect student success to happen?

    The data reveals a healthcare system fundamentally misaligned with student life realities. Only 65 per cent are registered with a GP where they study, just 17 per cent with a local dentist. And why should they bother? With 49 per cent expressing dissatisfaction with NHS services – “12 hours wait time at A&E is scandalous, people die waiting for ambulances, good luck getting an appointment” – the friction in accessing care hardly seems worth the effort. That we ask international students to pay for it is even more scandalous.

    The answers lie partly in our addiction to departmental silos and short-term thinking. No Westminster department champions students as a distinct population with specific health needs deserving of targeted interventions. Universities focus on student retention while the NHS prioritises acute care – and students fall through the gap between.

    The South African model of mandatory health modules covering mental, physical and sexual wellbeing offers an interesting approach – yet here we continue treating student health as an afterthought rather than a core educational function, something else that used to be developed in the gap between lectures that’s now filled with the demands of long commutes and punishing part-time work.

    What might a solution look like? Perhaps it starts with recognising that today’s “horizontal generation” won’t respond to top-down health messaging. Their peer networks and digital platforms represent not just challenges but opportunities for intervention. Digital solutions that personalise support, peer-to-peer health models, and practical education around cooking and nutrition align with how today’s students actually engage with information. But there’s another critical factor – our lack of comprehensive national data on student health.

    The current patchwork of institution-specific surveys and occasional national sampling is simply inadequate. How can we design effective interventions without a robust, longitudinal understanding of student health patterns? A dedicated national student health and wellbeing survey – tracking mental health, food insecurity, nutrition, sleep patterns, and their impact on academic outcomes – isn’t a luxury, it’s a fundamental prerequisite for evidence-based policy. Surely the NSS could take a year off every few years?

    Then when it comes to delivery, the answer won’t be found in Whitehall but in our regions and cities. Manchester’s integrated approach to student mental health – where university health services, local NHS trusts, and city council public health teams collaborate on shared priorities – demonstrates what’s possible when student health is approached as a citywide asset rather than an institutional burden. It should both be broadened beyond mental health, and replicated.

    And whatever is done really needs to be underpinned by rights – encompassing dual GP registration, affordable healthcare, timely disability diagnosis, health-supporting university policies, and integrated NHS partnerships.

    The alternative is to continue watching talented students struggle unnecessarily, their potential diminished by preventable health challenges. A student eating so poorly they “can’t afford basic nutrition” or sleeping in accommodation where “mould grew on my campus room’s walls before I even came in” isn’t just experiencing personal discomfort, they’re living the consequences of policy failure – and paying for it, in more ways than one.

    You can download the full deck of our findings from this Belong tranche on student health here.

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  • $100m Coalition election promise to fund 200 regional medical students matches Labor – Campus Review

    $100m Coalition election promise to fund 200 regional medical students matches Labor – Campus Review

    Regional and rural Australia’s doctor shortage is being targeted as an election issue by the Coalition, which is promising to fund an extra 200 students to train as general practitioners to work in the bush.

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  • Why some viruses are so difficult to stamp out

    Why some viruses are so difficult to stamp out

    The United States is fighting an unexpectedly big measles outbreak, with hundreds of cases in the state of Texas alone. Health experts expect it will last for a year or longer, because the virus has a long incubation period — people can be infected for days before they begin to show symptoms. That, in turn, means it can spread silently.

    Another virus that’s spreading silently right now is polio. Tests of wastewater around the world have turned up alarming levels of the virus, notorious for paralyzing children, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), but also in Europe, in Spain, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Finland.

    These two viruses should not still be around. They only infect human beings, and mass vaccination campaigns have been ongoing for decades to try to wipe them out. And the medical profession keeps coming so close to success. 

    And where do these viruses come from that keep returning despite our attempts to wipe them out? The answer is from us — from other people.

    Smallpox is the only human disease to have been completely eradicated. That was done with a dedicated global vaccination effort in 1972. Because the smallpox virus doesn’t infect any other animal, there wasn’t another place for it to survive and come back to reinfect people. 

    The same should be true for measles and polio, but war, disruption, poverty and a mistrust of vaccines make it difficult.

    Where viruses hide

    So even as vaccine campaigns come close to succeeding, the viruses can still hide out in unvaccinated and undervaccinated people. Travel and human contact do the rest to keep both measles and polio circulating. When an infected traveler hits a community of unvaccinated people — say a neighborhood of ultra-Orthodox Jews in London or a rural West Texas county full of vaccine skeptics — a contagious virus such as measles or polio can take off. 

    With both measles and polio, it takes immunization rates of more than 90% to protect a population. When rates drop below that, a community becomes vulnerable to outbreaks. A virus can take hold and spread among people, picking up steam.

    That’s happened in Pakistan and Afghanistan with polio, where efforts to reach remote populations fall short because of geography, conflict and mistrust. And in Gaza, where continuous Israeli attacks have destroyed virtually all healthcare facilities, United Nations agencies have struggled to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio outbreaks. 

    Polio is also complicated because of the different vaccine types. One of the vaccines is given orally, and it’s made using a live, but weakened, form of the virus. This gives good immunity but in rare cases the virus can mutate in someone’s body and return to infectious strength — becoming what’s called vaccine-derived virus. 

    A follow-up vaccination with a second type of vaccine made using a fully killed virus will protect against this, but when vaccine campaigns can’t be completed, vaccine-derived viruses can emerge.

    How viruses spread

    In Europe, no cases of polio have been seen, but wastewater evidence suggests the virus is surviving in people’s bodies, and could burst out to cause sickness if it gets to someone unvaccinated. Polio spreads via the fecal-oral route — in contaminated water, via poorly washed hands, on surfaces and also via sneezes and coughs.

    Fully vaccinated communities are safe but in 2022, an unvaccinated man in New York State became paralyzed after he caught polio. Investigation showed a vaccine-derived strain had been spreading quietly in the state.

    Measles is the most infectious disease known and that makes it particularly hard to eradicate. In a podcast interview I did for for One World, One Health, Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and vaccine scientist at the Baylor College of Medicine, explained just how infectious it is. 

    “If someone has measles, and especially before they get the virus and stop feeling very sick, they’re releasing the virus into the atmosphere,” Hotez said. 

    Even if they leave the room, that virus will linger in the atmosphere for a couple of hours.

    “So you can walk into an empty room that has the measles virus from someone who was there a couple of hours before and become infected,” he said, noting that one measles patient will infect up to 18 other people.

    A virus reemerges.

    Nine out of 10 unvaccinated people who are exposed to the measles virus will become infected. What is disappointing to public health experts in the latest U.S. outbreak is that so many people have become infected when measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000 and in all of the Americas in 2016.

    But pockets of people who are not vaccinated against measles can act like tinder. The spark is usually a traveler who goes to a country where measles is still common because vaccination rates are low — usually due to poverty. 

    In a November 2024 report the WHO said that measles is still common in many places, particularly in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

    “The overwhelming majority of measles deaths occur in countries with low per capita incomes or weak health infrastructures that struggle to reach all children with immunization,” the report said. Measles kills more than 100,000 people a year, mostly children. But before the vaccine was introduced in the early 1960s, it killed 2.6 million a year.

    The COVID-19 pandemic badly hurt all childhood immunization efforts, WHO and other global health authorities say. Routine childhood vaccines have not caught back up to where they were before the pandemic, leaving children and adults susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases including measles and polio but also meningitis, hepatitis, tetanus, cervical cancer and rotavirus — a disease that causes diarrhea and vomiting in babies and young children. 

    The retreat of the United States from global health efforts — the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, its plan to cut $1 billion in funding to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and its withdrawal from the World Health Organization — will further weaken global vaccination, experts say.

    And that means many more children will likely die who might otherwise live healthy lives. 

     

    Three questions to consider:

    1. How can vaccines help prevent the spread of diseases?

    2. What role should personal choice play in being vaccinated against deadly diseases?

    3. How can global cooperation help in fighting the spread of disease?

     

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  • Too much of what’s healthy can be harmful

    Too much of what’s healthy can be harmful

    Some TikTok videos about health and fitness are hard to resist. People describe how they lost weight by eating only raw fruits and vegetables for a month or by substituting protein powder in place of flour or sugar. How many people take these recommendations to heart? What happens if they do?

    Jason Wood was one of them. “I would sprinkle [protein powder] on top of a peanut butter sandwich or a yogurt just to make what I was eating seem healthier,” he said.

    But Wood’s practice of adding protein powder to make his foods healthier wasn’t healthy. Eventually, Wood was diagnosed with orthorexia, an obsession with nutrition. Orthorexia is an eating disorder that differs significantly from better-known eating disorders like bulimia — bingeing and vomiting the food afterwards — and anorexia — not eating at all.

    Wood now works with the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders and speaks to audiences about eating disorders. 

    Studies in Australia, Turkey and the United States have found that the viewership of TikTok lifestyle influencers has led to an increase in orthorexia symptoms, which are not well understood by popular culture and are not explicitly defined in psychiatric textbooks. 

    Avoiding what’s bad isn’t always good.

    Rachel Hogg, psychologist and researcher at Charles Sturt University School of Psychology in Australia, defines orthorexia as “the avoidance of foods that are unhealthy or impure.” 

    The term was first coined in 1996 by California doctor Steven Bratman after he decided to eat only clean, nutritious foods. Eventually his research led him to narrow his food options so much that he cut out entire food groups which caused him physical suffering.

    Wood recalls being freezing cold in the middle of summer with his whole body hurting and frequent dizzy spells. Because it’s an outgrowth of healthy eating, the condition is difficult to identify, says Hogg, who calls it “the wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

    Experts feel it is time people paid attention to the risk of developing orthorexia when exposed to high amounts of TikTok content. 

    Todd Minor Sr. lost his youngest son Matthew in 2019 to the TikTok “Blackout Challenge”; people who took the “challenge” would have themselves choked till they blacked out. In a January 2025 edition of Tech Policy Press, Minor called for social media warning labels as a public health tool. “These labels have a proven track record of raising awareness about the risks of dangerous products, especially among young people,” he wrote. 

    People don’t know what’s bad for them.

    Warning labels inform the consumer of the potential risk of product use and advise limiting dangerous exposure to vulnerable groups of people to avoid premature death or disability. According to orthorexia experts, all of these needs exist when it comes to TikTok. 

    Hadassah Johanna Hazan, a licensed clinical social worker in Jerusalem, knows firsthand how the public is painfully unaware of the dangers of orthorexia from talking to her patients. She describes how over the last 10 years ideal beauty has increasingly been defined as a fit and toned physique for both men and women. 

    This has led people to normalize eating patterns that Hazan describes as “very limiting at best and very harmful and unhealthy at worst.” She said constant and regular avoidance of food groups such as carbs or regularly substituting protein powders for ingredients such as sugar become addictions that her patients do not know how to stop. 

    Even those who teach healthy eating can fall into the orthorexia trap. Research published in the June 2021 supplement of American Society of Nutrition by a group of researchers in the U.S. state of Washington indicated that knowledge of orthorexia was low both in the general public sample group and in the sample group of nutrition students.  

    In fairness to TikTok, the social media giant has established an eating disorder safety page but the term orthorexia is never mentioned and there is no mention of content on TikTok being linked to eating disorders. 

    A balanced diet is best.

    Another group of people who seem ignorant of the risk is the group of TikTok health and fitness influencers who are the ones putting out #WIEIAD (What I Eat In A Day) video diaries and other similar content. 

    Elaina Efird, registered dietician nutritionist and TikTok body positivity influencer, said that influencers don’t realize how much they are entrenched in the problem. What motivates these influencers, she said, is that they either truly believe what they are advertising is healthy or they are so distressed by the alternative of being in a larger body that they overlook the harm in what they promote.

    As a TikTok influencer, Efird creates a space where all body sizes are valued and she wants viewership of her positive message to grow. But as a provider of healthcare to eating disorder patients, she also recognizes her moral responsibility.

    “I tell my clients that if they’re struggling, don’t be on TikTok,” she said. This insight comes from an understanding that certain groups of people are at a higher risk of being triggered by TikTok videos than others. 

    Hogg shares this understanding and even used it when co-designing a research study with fellow researcher Madison R. Blackburn that was published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One in August 2024. 

    Each participant was screened to make sure they did not have past or present eating disorders before being asked to watch up to eight minutes of TikTok content, which is the equivalent of just over 50 videos. 

    Algorithms don’t know what’s best for us.

    Hogg said that the sad truth is that an eating disorder patient in remission might search for a body positive video but then suggestions pop up on the TikTok homepage, which is called #ForYou, that might tout orthorexia.  She called the algorithm of TikTok a “blunt instrument.”

    Another vulnerable population with strong connections to TikTok are teens and pre-teens. According to a Statistica 2022 survey, 68% of pre-teens were using social media applications and 47% of respondents ages 11–12 were using TikTok in particular.  As Hogg put it, TikTok is powered by “young people creating content for young people.” 

    The disturbing reality known by psychiatrists is that pre-teens are at the highest risk of developing eating disorders because symptoms manifest typically during adolescence. 

    But what scares the public most about any disease is its lethality. According to an article published in February 2021 by the American Society of Nutrition, some 10,200 people die each year in the United States from eating disorders. 

    Even when death is avoided, an obsession with nutrition can lead to nutritional deficiencies, compromised bone mass, extreme weight loss and malnourishment, including brain starvation, even if that seems counterintuitive. And none of that even touches on the effects on mental or emotional wellbeing. 

    Now that Wood is in remission he wants the label “healthy” to be redefined to indicate support of mental, emotional, social and spiritual health and not just support of physical health. 

    Individuals, he said, should stick to positive reasons for engaging with social media such as community building and avoid using it to make harmful comparisons. 


    Questions to consider:

    1.  How do psychologists define orthorexia?
    2. How does orthorexia differ from anorexia or bulimia?
    3. Has social media influenced what you eat? 

     



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  • Resilience is a matter of national health

    Resilience is a matter of national health

    With ongoing shortages of some 40,000 nurses and a 26 per cent drop in applicants to nursing degree courses in the last two years the staffing crisis in the NHS is set to get more acute.

    There is the backdrop of strikes, the legacy of Covid, low pay, the costs of studying along with the cost of living crisis.

    It is, perhaps, little wonder that around 12 per cent of nursing students in England fail to complete their degrees – twice the average undergraduate drop out rate. As health students tell us, “there are times when the NHS is not a nice place to be.”

    The constant cycle of coursework and clinical placements is “a treadmill, hard graft.” Students talk about feeling isolated, particularly during placements.

    The pressure to succeed and the fear of judgment from peers and professionals over not being able to “tough it out” can get in the way of students accessing support. The emotional toll of the work, coupled with the expectation to maintain a brave face, leads to compassion fatigue, burnout and a sense of depersonalisation.

    “It’s not,” students tell us, “what I thought it would be.”

    The resilience narrative

    Of course, the notion that healthcare is inherently tough and that only the most resilient can survive is not new. In fact, it’s something of a badge of honour.

    As one student told us, “there is this echo chamber. Students all telling each other about how tough it is, about the pressure, the volume of work, how it is non-stop and overwhelming.”

    But tying students’ worth to their ability to withstand adversity, that it is up to them to make up for something lacking in themselves instead of focusing on their capacity to thrive and grow, can be disempowering and debilitating.

    It’s time to change this corrosive resilience narrative, to bury the notion that it is the student who is somehow coming up short, who needs fixing. Resilience is not about survival and just getting through. It’s about coming back from set backs and thriving. It is about learning and growing. And it’s about something that is fostered within a supportive community rather than an ordeal endured alone by every student.

    So resilience becomes about putting in place support, about gathering what you need to be a success instead of simply finding a lifeline in a crisis.

    It is community that becomes a building block of resilience: the pro-active building of strong networks among students that enable and encourage them to support each other; building a wider support network of academic staff, supervisors in placements, of family and friends. It is here you find fresh perspective, the space to come back from setbacks.

    A midwifery student describes the: “WhatsApp group to keep in touch, check in and support each other. We’ve got a real sense of community;” a nursing student talks about how “it turned out that other students were just as terrified and felt like they were starting from scratch with every new placement.

    Sharing our feelings and experiences really helped normalise them;” and the medical student who suddenly “realised that everyone else was struggling. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t have confidence in themself and their abilities.”

    And by challenging negative interpretations of themselves, the “I can’t do it”, “I don’t belong”, “I’m the only one who’s struggling,” students begin to see new choices. Resilience becomes about developing the sense of agency and the confidence to respond differently, to challenge, to get the support you need to navigate towards your own definition of success.

    What matters

    So, to be resilient also means making the space to reflect on what truly matters to you when the norm, as a health student, is to focus only on the patients.

    Our medical student talks about how:

    …I spend a lot of time focused on looking after others and have seen myself as a low priority. This lack of self care used to result in things building up to breaking point. I needed a place to reflect, away from all the academic pressures. A time to focus on myself.

    It can take courage to do different, to do what is right for you rather then what people expect you to do. It takes courage not to join in with the prevailing culture when it doesn’t work for you. So resilience is also about bravery.

    The midwifery student again:

    I’m stopping negative experiences being the be all and end all of my experience.

    Disruptors and modellers

    What we’re talking about here is a cultural shift, about redefining the resilience narrative so it is about enabling students to discover their strengths and navigate their challenges with confidence.

    The role of staff is critical – as disruptors of the prevailing narrative in healthcare; in modelling behaviour; and re-inventing their everyday interactions with the practitioners of tomorrow.

    By using coaching tools and techniques, those of whose job it is to support students can:

    • Create a supportive environment that mitigates against self-stigma and provides students with permission and opportunities to be proactive in disclosing needs and unconditional reassurance that they feel they will be heard and valued;
    • Work in relationship with the whole student, supporting students to reflect on who they are and where they are going, and to make courageous choices;
    • Foster a sense of community to create a more supportive and effective learning environment

    We know there are places where this work has already getting results.

    A Clinical Skills Tutor describes how this approach:

    …has made me rethink my relationship with students, opened me up to working with students in a way I’d not thought about. I’ve seen how empowering it can be. I’m much more effective at making sure they get the support they need.

    Empowering students to redefine “resilience” on their own terms makes it a platform for learning and growth, rather than a burden to bear. There are more likely to succeed in their studies and will be better prepared for the challenges in their professional lives.

    As our student nurse puts it:

    “Grit turns your thinking on its head. I’ve been happier, calmer, better able to cope. I ask for help and support when I need it. I don’t bottle things up to breaking point. Things just don’t get to crisis point any more.

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  • What’s all the flap about bird flu?

    What’s all the flap about bird flu?

    Avian influenza has scared doctors and scientists for a generation. But its arrival in the United States might finally give the H5N1 bird flu virus the combination of factors it needs to cause a global pandemic.

    Those factors include a new carrier; dairy cattle; a regulatory system that protects farmers at the expense of human health; and a government bent on taking down an already weak public health infrastructure.

    The H5N1 avian influenza virus making headlines around the world — and driving up the price of eggs — in the United States is no youngster. It’s been around since at least 1996, when it was first spotted in a flock of geese in Guangdong in southern China.

    Since then it has spread around the entire world, tearing through flocks of poultry in Asia, Europe and the Americas and wiping out birds and mammals on every continent, including Antarctica. H5N1 bird flu only rarely infects people but as of the end of January 2025, the World Health Organization reported 964 human cases globally and 466 deaths, although many milder cases are likely to have been missed.

    Vets and virus experts have had their eyes on H5N1, in particular, for decades. It didn’t look like a serious threat when it killed geese in 1996. But the next year the virus caused an outbreak in people just over the border from Guangdong in Hong Kong.

    It infected 18 people and killed six of them before it was stopped. That got people’s attention. A 30% fatality rate is exceptionally high for a virus — something approaching the mortality of smallpox.

    Mutations and swap meets

    The virus gets its name from two prominent structures: the hemagglutinin, or H designation, and the neuraminidase, or N. All influenza A viruses get an HxNx name. The current circulating viruses causing human flu misery right now are H1N1 and H3N2, for example, as well as influenza B, which doesn’t get any fancy name.

    But influenza viruses are exceptionally mutation-prone, and even the extra designation doesn’t tell the whole story about the changes the virus has undergone. Every time a flu virus replicates itself, it can make a mistake and change a little. This is called antigenic shift. As if this wasn’t enough, flu viruses can also meet up inside an animal and swap large chunks of genetic material.

    The result? The H5N1 viruses now circulating are very different from those that were seen back in 1996 and 1997, even though they have the same name.

    This is what’s been going on over the past 30 years. H5N1 has been cooking along merrily in birds around the world. So, after the 1997 outbreak, not much was seen of H5N1 until 2003, when it caused widespread outbreaks in poultry in China. Researchers discovered it could infect wild waterfowl without making them sick, but it made chickens very sick, very fast. And those sick chickens could infect people.

    The best way to control its spread among poultry was to cull entire flocks, but if people doing the culling didn’t take the right precautions, they could get infected, and the virus caused serious, often fatal infections. Doctors began to worry that the virus would infect pigs. Pigs are often farmed alongside chickens and ducks, and they’re a traditional “mixing vessel” for flu viruses. If a pig catches an avian flu virus, it can evolve inside the animal to adapt more easily to mammals such as humans. Pigs have been the source of more than one influenza pandemic.

    Pandemic planning

    In the early 2000s, scientists and public health officials took H5N1 so seriously that they held pandemic exercises based on the premise that H5N1 would cause a full-blown pandemic. (Journalists were included in some of these exercises, and I took part in a few.)

    But it didn’t cause a pandemic. Vaccines were developed and stockpiled. Pandemic plans were eventually discarded, ironically just ahead of the Covid pandemic.

    However, flu viruses are best known for their confounding behavior, and H5N1 has always been full of surprises. It has evolved as it has spread, sometimes popping up and sometimes disappearing, but never causing the feared human pandemic. It has not spread widely among pigs although it has occasionally infected people around the world, as well as pet cats, zoo animals, wild seals, polar bears, many different species of birds and, most lately, dairy cattle.

    It’s this development that might finally be a turning point for H5N1.

    For a virus to start a human pandemic, it must acquire the ability to infect people easily; it must then pass easily from person to person; and it must cause significant illness.

    Competing interests

    So far, this hasn’t happened with H5N1. It has infected 68 people in the United States, mostly poultry or dairy workers. Mostly, it causes an eye infection called conjunctivitis, although it killed one Louisiana man. But it is spreading in a never-before-seen way — on milking equipment and in the raw milk of the infected cattle.

    “The more it spreads within mammals, that gives it more chances to mutate,” said Nita Madhav, a former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researcher who is now senior director of epidemiology and modeling at Ginkgo Biosecurity. I interviewed her for a podcast for One World One Health Trust. “As it mutates, as it changes, there is a greater chance it can infect humans. If it gains the ability to spread efficiently from person to person, then it would be hard to stop,” Madhav said.

    And while some states are working to detect and control its spread, the federal government is not doing as much as public health experts say it should. Two agencies are involved: the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

    Dr. John Swartzberg, a health sciences clinical professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley said in an interview with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health that the USDA is charged with two responsibilities that only sometimes work in concert.

    “One of the responsibilities they have is to assure a healthy agricultural industry for the United States,” Swartzberg said. “The second responsibility is to assure safety of the human beings who consume agricultural products in the United States.”

    More information, not less, is needed.

    Dairy farmers feared they’d lose money if their farms were identified as sources of infection. And it’s a lot more expensive to cull cattle than it is to cull chickens.

    “And I think what we’ve seen with this bird flu problem is that the USDA is tilted in favor of protecting the industry, as opposed to protecting the health of humans,” Swartzberg said. “CDC is also involved, but the CDC has no authority to go into states and tell them what to do. It has to be done state by state.”

    On top of that, U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the CDC to take down websites reporting on avian flu and other issues. He is withdrawing U.S. membership from WHO, crippling the ability to coordinate with other countries on controlling outbreaks of disease.

    He notably tried to suppress reporting about Covid during his previous presidency and promoted unproven and disproven treatments.

    His newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary, who will oversee CDC and other agencies charged with human health, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, is a vaccine denier, proponent of raw milk and has no public health qualifications.

    The stubbornness of people in the United States doesn’t help. When public health officials warned against drinking raw milk last year, raw milk sales actually went up.

    “Food safety experts like me are just simply left shaking their heads,” Donald Schaffner, a Rutgers University food science professor, told PBS News.

    The big fear? That in flu season, someone will catch both seasonal flu and H5N1, giving the viruses a chance to make friends in the body, swap genetic material and make a deadly new virus that can infect people easily.

     

    Three questions to consider:

    1. How can politics affect public health risk?
    2. How does public understanding and trust affect the risk of disease?
    3. Countries often blame one another for the spread of disease, but should they?

     

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  • Decoder Replay: Bacteria doesn’t stop at the border

    Decoder Replay: Bacteria doesn’t stop at the border

    During the Covid pandemic, nations realized they needed to work together to keep their people safe. That’s where the World Health Organization comes in. 

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  • The barriers that must be removed for degree apprenticeships to meet NHS workforce targets

    The barriers that must be removed for degree apprenticeships to meet NHS workforce targets

    The recent notion that level 7 apprenticeships will be ineligible for support from the apprenticeship levy has caused consternation amongst training providers, especially in healthcare.

    Training providers and employers are urgently seeking clarity on the government’s position – the current “announcement without action” leaves stakeholders unclear about next steps and further risks the reputation and role of apprenticeships in skills development.

    The development of advanced roles in health or shortened routes to registerable qualifications significantly relies on level 7 apprenticeships. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is full of examples of how advanced and new roles are needed now and in the future.

    Once again, decisions are being made by the Department for Education without consulting or collaborating with the Department of Health and Social Care, which means that questions are left unanswered. It is not the first time that training providers and University Alliance have called for joined up thinking and, unfortunately, it certainly won’t be the last.

    Expansion of opportunity

    Health apprenticeships at the University of Derby started small with level 5 provision about ten years ago (subsequently expanding to levels 6 and 7) – we could not have foreseen the enormous expansion of opportunity both in health and other industries that would follow.

    I am proud to say that “I was there” when the nurse degree apprenticeship standard was approved in 2017 – the culmination of two years’ collaboration between the Nursing and Midwifery Council, government, Skills for Health, employers and training providers.

    There were challenges, but we made it, and it opened the door to transformation in how healthcare professionals are educated.

    A bumpy road

    But the journey remains bumpy, and apprenticeships seem to be experiencing a particular period of turbulence. New research conducted by the University of Derby on behalf of University Alliance demonstrates the need for change in how the levy is utilised, the importance of partnership working, and the support that those involved with apprenticeship delivery need in order to secure successful outcomes.

    While the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan of 2023 is itself being refreshed, we can be confident that apprenticeships will continue to have a significant part to play in workforce development. However, our new research has shown how and where employers and training providers need support to make this happen.

    Employers told us how expensive they find it to support apprenticeships, with apprentice salaries, backfill and organisational infrastructure contributing to the financial burden. We know that apprentices need significant support through their learning journey, taking time and investment from employers.

    To make apprenticeships truly successful, the support required is over and above that normally expected in healthcare programmes, yet apprenticeships are specifically excluded from the NHS Healthcare Education and Training tariff. This feels like a double whammy – no support from the tariff and no flexibility in how the levy could be utilised differently, meaning that the responsibility remains with the employer to resource.

    Equally, training providers reported the additional activities and responsibilities associated with the delivery of apprenticeships. The University of Derby has recently successfully completed its inspection by Ofsted. The week of the inspection required input from teams across the University, but the enduring responsibilities of compliance and record keeping make this a continuous activity for a skilled and specialist team.

    The Education and Skills Funding Agency then came hot on the tails of Ofsted – while this is not unexpected, it has again required teams from across the University working long hours to be audit ready. These inspections have served as a reminder of the regulatory burden placed on training providers, especially in healthcare.

    A matter of commitment

    Today marks the start of National Apprenticeship Week. At the University of Derby, we are hosting a week of activities and events, encouraging aspirant apprentices and a range of employers to come and find out more about what apprenticeships can do for them. It is heartening to hear that the number of young people coming to the campus this year has more than doubled since last year’s event.

    Finally, the word is beginning to spread about apprenticeships, and we find school leavers are increasingly well informed about their post-16 and post-18 options.

    The week’s events will be ably supported by our employer partners and apprentices, truly reflecting the partnerships that have developed over the years. These partnerships take a significant amount of investment on all sides – anyone in the vocational education and training world will know that strong partnerships take time and effort to build and maintain. But even the briefest of conversations with apprentices will tell you that it is all worth it. Their confidence, passion and knowledge (their skills and behaviours too) shine through. In a city like Derby, the awareness of the positive difference you are making not only to the apprentice, but also to their family and friends, is never far from your thoughts.

    It is difficult to know how the advent of Skills England will impact the pace and scale of reform, but the present inertia may set the country back – and it certainly will if a blanket approach to level 7 apprenticeship funding is adopted, and lack of join-up between DfE and DHSC remains the status quo.

    National Apprenticeship Week 2025 has the potential to be a force for good – and should be the week that all stakeholders commit to making a difference.

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  • 10 Budget-Friendly Meal Prep Ideas For Busy College Students

    10 Budget-Friendly Meal Prep Ideas For Busy College Students



    10 Budget-Friendly Meal Prep Ideas For Busy College Students





















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