Nadia's Story

Nadia, 31, from West Ham and Beckton in London, wanted to train as a nurse to serve her community in one of England's most deprived areas. But HM Treasury's spending limits meant Health Education England couldn't fund the training places that hospitals desperately needed to fill. This isn't about a shortage of people wanting to help or a lack of capacity to train them. It's about a central government that chooses to treat public investment as a cost to be minimised, even when trained healthcare workers are exactly what communities like West Ham and Beckton need most. The training infrastructure existed. The motivation was there. What was missing was a government willing to fund it. Disclosure: This episode discusses government spending and public service funding from a post-Keynesian economic perspective.