EVER-GROWING demand for specialist scientific skills in the NHS has prompted the launch of a bursary scheme, Deputy Health Minister Lewis Macdonald announced in Dundee yesterday.

Up to £2000 will be paid to biomedical science students on NHS placements and they will no longer have to complete a year of further training after graduation, meaning they can move straight to a higher-paid job.

The hope is that more students will choose a career in the health service, working in vital posts in haematology, clinical chemistry, microbiology and pathology.

During a visit to laboratories at Abertay University, the minister said that patients often only saw the front-line staff such as doctors and nurses, but many others were needed behind the scenes.

There were already about 1600 biomedical scientists in NHS Scotland and, thanks in part to improvements in medical technology, demand for their services was rising at 10% a year.

The new scheme would offer real incentives to encourage more graduates to join.

Mr Macdonald said, “For the first time ever, biomedical science students will now be able to become state registered to work in the NHS while they study.

“Scottish universities who provide biomedical science degrees have been extremely supportive in implementing state registration and revising their course content to suit the needs of the NHS.

“I am confident this work should help to recruit more graduates into the NHS.”

Third-year Abertay student Ian Waldie said a range of options were open to graduates, including working in the private sector and moving on to research labs. He believed the bursary would make a health service career a more attractive option, as would the dropping of the training year from autumn 2006.

Prof John Palfreyman, head of the university’s school of contemporary sciences, said the new measures would address a “severe skills shortage” in the NHS.

The bursary scheme will be run for three years initially.