The decision to make nursing an all-graduate profession has hung in the air for the past two decades. With the advent of Project 2000 (Department of Health [DH], 2007), it would have seemed a logical progression, however, this has not been the case. There has been a move from NHS-based training colleges to further education, and now most nurse education has moved into university settings. It is a logical development that degree level nursing should follow once it became part of the mainstream university set-up. The actual education of nurses has slowly evolved to become 50% theory and 50% practice since 1992, which has changed the role of the student. Despite the 50/50 nature of the training, the ‘supernumerary’ status of the student was not well received in the clinical areas and, unfortunately, this lead to tension between hospitals and the educational establishments. In addition, there was the introduction of a bursary and not a wage, which again supported the supernumerary status of the student.