Northern Ireland will move to a degree-only nursing programme from 2011 with all students receiving bursary funding to complete their training.

The news comes as the Department of Health announced that all new nurses in England from 2013 will have to spend at least three years being trained to degree level.

It is hoped the extra one or two years of training needed for nurses to obtain a degree will include a focus on gaining experience in community health teams.

Since 1995, Northern Ireland has offered both degree and higher education diploma programmes to all new entrants into nursing and midwifery.

Chief Nursing Officer Martin Bradley said: "From 2011 we will move to a degree only programme and all students will receive a non means tested bursary.

"Northern Ireland has been and still is at the forefront of developments in nursing education.

"Since the 1980s we have been offering nursing degrees through the University of Ulster and we are still uniquely positioned to offer degree programmes to all our students."

The Royal College of Nursing Northern Ireland supports the move.

"While we still offer the diploma exit here, the reality is that the vast majority of nursing student graduate with a degree so it wouldn't be as big a change here as it will be in England," a spokeswoman said.

However Vicky Scullion, who is studying for a nursing degree at the University of Ulster in Coleraine, thinks scrapping the diploma will cost Northern Ireland thousands of talented nurses: "There are some nursing students who have fantastic clinical skills with a great holistic view of patients but are just not good at assignments.

"The degree wouldn't suit them," she said.

She continued: "My mother who is a Sister along with the older generation of nurses learnt everything on the ward.

"She feels that they have experience that the nurses with degrees or diplomas might not necessarily possess."

(GK/BMcC)