Student nurses get striking lessons during their taxpayer-subsidised training taught by Corbynista

Trainee nurses are being taught political activism during their taxpayer-subsidized training, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Trainee nurses can take an ‘advocacy, activism and resistance’ module at the University of Essex as part of their training.

The eight-week course includes lectures from Holly Turner, a left-wing campaigner who urged NHS nurses to reject the government’s pay offer and launch new strikes.

The graduate nurse, co-founder of the NHS Workers Say NO group, has called for a general strike, saying strikes are designed to ‘pull the Tories by the ropes’.

After a talk last week, Ms. Turner posted a photo of herself in front of a PowerPoint slide titled “Nurse Activism.” The points included ‘Political activism for health professionals complements clinical practice’.

The graduate nurse, co-founder of the NHS Workers Say NO group, has called for a general strike, saying strikes are designed to ‘pull the Tories by the ropes’

NHS Workers Say NO has links with Extinction Rebellion, and Ms Turner has expressed ‘solidarity’ with ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, describing him as ‘our greatest champion and supporter’. She regularly campaigned with hard-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 bachelor’s degree at the university.

Trainee nurses are eligible for £5,000 taxpayer funded scholarships towards the annual course fee of £9,250.

The course states that students learn to “actively oppose…practices and policies that adversely affect groups of people.”

One of 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 policies and influence policy change’.

Another requires students to “demonstrate the development of political awareness and courageous, compassionate person-centred activism and solidarity with people and colleagues.” The course is taught by ‘keynote speakers, researchers and people with lived experience’.

The University of Essex denied that students were taught to oppose government policies.

In a row over pay, members of the Royal College of Nursing went on strike last year for the first time in their 106-year history. Since then it has staged a number of strikes. In May, a number of other NHS unions accepted a 5 per cent pay rise, along with a one-off payment, but both RCN and Unite members voted against the deal.

However, nurses’ strikes came to an end last month after the RCN, the largest nursing union, failed to garner enough votes for further action.

Following this, NHS Workers Say NO issued a statement saying: ‘The fight for fair wages and to save our NHS is certainly not over. Our job now must be to keep organizing in our workplaces, stay united as an NHS workforce… and get ready to fight harder than ever for the next pay round.

“We stand with our junior doctors and all workers who go on strike, solidarity!”

Dr. Caroline Johnson, a consultant and Tory MP on the Commons Health Select Committee, said: ‘Nursing students are there to learn how to take good care of people, not to learn political activism from left-wing individuals. The fact that students are apparently being asked to choose between this subject and such an important subject as Public Mental Health worries me greatly.’

The university said Ms Turner was not paid for her guest lecture. It added: ‘We don’t teach students to oppose government policies, but to stand up for patients and the interests of those with health needs that may be least met.

“The courses to which this module contributes have been approved by the regulatory body, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, as well as our own rigorous processes.”