Nursing has always been a calling for Rachel Foster, but despite the staffing crisis in Oxford hospitals, it has taken her five years to get on a course.

She almost became a painter and decorator as a result of the difficulties.

The Oxford Mail revealed last week that Oxfordshire is reeling from the highest number of nursing staff vacancies outside London.

Rachel, of Barns Road, Cowley, has found it almost impossible to get on to a nursing course.

She started studied for a diploma in nursing at Central Middlesex Hospital in 1991, but had to leave nine months before the end after she fell pregnant and moved back to Oxford.

When she later applied to Oxford Brookes University to do a nursing degree, she was told she would have to pay for all her costsfees, living expenses and child care, costing thousands of pounds. She was told she was not entitled to a grant because she already has a degree, but she could not afford these costs.

So she enrolled in a painting and decorating course for which she received financial help.

But her dream of becoming a nurse was too strong and she applied for the course at Brookes University. The system nationally has now been changed, and students can apply for means tested bursaries and their tuition fees can be paid for by the NHS.

Rachel will now start the nursing degree course at Brookes University on September 21 - but she now has to start from scratch and complete the full three years.

Instead of the £125 per week she would have had if she had stayed on benefits, she will now have to live on £80 a week.

She, said: "I always knew I wanted to go back to nursing. But it was much too much money.

"But after a year of painting and decorating, I knew I did not want to do that. I had always been involved in nursing and that was what I wanted to do. It seems ridiculous you can get funds for certain subjects and they won't do it for ones where it is more important.

"The NHS is desperate for nurses, but they don't seem to be helping people to join the profession."

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