Apologies if you receive this message twice: copied to both Admin-Students
and Admin-LEA.
This is a plea for information about the new NHS Bursaries now available to
5th and higher Clinical Medical undergraduates.
There are several levels of problem. A particular local difficulty is that
the NHS does not seem to realise that at Cambridge, student administration
is done in the 31 colleges, not in the University, and the NHS has not
communicated with all the colleges. Therefore we have been unable to
discover much about the scheme as it impacts upon student administration
and the invoicing and collection of university fees. It might be that you,
at other universities, are better informed and can point me in the right
direction.
Secondly, there appears to be no publicly posted information (e.g. on the
web) about the scheme as it applies to university administrators. Or at
least, I have not been able to find it. There is some material addressed
to the student, but none that explains how university fee collections
should be done.
Thirdly, such information as I have been able to discover (some documents
dated April 2002 from the NHS Student Grants Unit in Blackpool), refers
only to students domiciled in England. It is not clear from this document
whether similar NHS Bursary schemes exist for students domiciled in Wales,
Northern Ireland, and Scotland, and certainly I have not been able to find
any publications referring to such schemes. In any case, the document is
not adequately clear even about the scheme for England.
So, in relation to the scheme for England, the following query arises. The
guidance from the NHS SGU repeatedly says "students will not have to pay
tuition fee _contributions_". Another document says: "If you receive an
NHS funded Bursary the full costs of your training including your Personal
Tuition Fee Element ... will be paid on your behalf". Does this mean that
the NHS Bursary covers only the Personal Contribution of the student
towards the University Fee, and the SLC continue to pay the remainder
through Fee Support? When we invoice the NHS SGU for the students' fees,
do we invoice them for the total annual amount, or just for the amount
assessed as the student's Personal Contribution to Fees? Or are the NHS
Bursary people now totally outside the Student Support system?
The April 2002 letters from NHS-SGU only explain how to invoice Fees for
NHS Bursary-holders domiciled in England. What are the arrangements for
students domiciled in Wales, Northen Ireland, and Scotland? Do NHS
Bursaries exist in those countries? Are there published details of the
schemes in those countries? Is there a central billing address, as with
England, or do we bill every LEA/ELB independently, as we did for the old
Mandatory Awards?
If anyone can point me to formal documentation relevant to any of these
queries, I shall be most grateful.
--
Robin Walker (Junior Bursar), Queens' College, Cambridge CB3 9ET, UK
[log in to unmask] http://www.quns.cam.ac.uk/ Tel:+44 1223 335528
|