Kingston backs down over uniform charge

Senior staff at Kingston University ran into trouble earlier this week over plans to charge student nurses Pounds 100 for their uniforms. Peter Scott, Kingston vice-chancellor, and Robert Boyd, principal of St Thomas' Medical School, which runs the courses jointly with the university, were forced to reverse a decision to make nursing trainees pay for uniforms out of their Pounds 5,300-a-year bursaries after advice from the Department of Health that the move fell foul of the university's Pounds 8 million NHS contract to train nurses.