HARD-UP student nurses are to take their campaign for better wages to Health Secretary Alan Milburn.

The Darlington MP has agreed to meet a delegation of five Unison student nurses in London on Monday.

They include Elaine Chapman, a single mother-of-four who lives in Mr Milburn's constituency.

The 45-year-old is one of thousands of nurses who are forced to live on a bursary of between £4,500 and £5,000 a year.

"During our course we do about 4,600 hours study and, with the bursary, this works out at about £2.60 an hour.

"We can't claim benefits because we are classed as students and we can't claim student benefits because we are considered to be employed."

Student nursing salaries were abolished in 1989, but had they been kept they would now be earning between £9,000 and £10,000 a year.

This has resulted in nearly one quarter of nursing students dropping out of their courses because of financial hardship.

The trip to see Mr Milburn has been arranged as a result of Unison's campaign calling for the restoration of salaries and employee status for nursing students.

Unison head of nursing Karen Jennings said: "With such an acute shortage of trained nurses, we cannot afford to let them go.

"We hope that the personal experiences of our five students, who are representative of 60,000 others, will persuade the health secretary that bursaries are not enough and that he will look at restoring salaries and employment protection to these very hard-working people."

Unison senior regional officer Robin Moss said: "The Government says that recruiting nursery and midwifery students is high on its agenda, but the drop-out rate from courses is currently 25 per cent, with financial problems the most cited reason for giving up.

"Hardest hit are mature students returning to education, the very group the Government says it wants.

"Unless something is done to change the statuses of these students, then the problem will only get worse.