| Practice area: | Education and Labour Markets | Public Policy |
|---|---|
| Client: | Royal College of Nursing |
| Published: | 21 March, 2025 |
| Keywords: | choice experiment Nursing 2025 Labour Market Economics |
London Economics were commissioned by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to examine the effect of various factors relating to the remuneration and working conditions of public sector nurses in England on the number of years that they will remain working in the public sector. In addition, we also monetised the likely societal benefits associated with implementing undergraduate student loan forgiveness for public sector nurses.
To address these questions, we conducted a survey of over 5,000 RCN members in England, in which we conducted choice experiments to determine the effect of various factors on public sector retention.
We found that a student loan forgiveness model for public sector nurses would lead to nurses working 7-10 years longer in the public sector, which would result in a societal benefit of £1.162 billion per graduating cohort (in net present value terms).
The findings from the research can be found within the RCN’s Fixing the Leaking Pipeline, which is available here.