Former chief nurse Dame Ruth May told the inquiry the decision to scrap the nursing bursary in 2015 had a ‘catastrophic' impact on staffing levels.

May said the bursary paid to student midwives and nurses, which was replaced with loans and which resulted in a drop of around 5,700 trainees, ‘would have made a difference' and added a further 40 nurses to each hospital.

She added ‘if we had more nurses there would be less burn-out, there would be less psychological impact'.

The former chief nurse said frontline nurses ‘were in fear of not having gowns and going potentially with just aprons' and were ‘facing some extraordinarily difficult decisions'.

May said asking specialist critical care nurses in intensive care units to look after up to six patients instead of the usual one-to-one had ‘consequences'.

She also said the policy of using blanket do not resuscitate orders during the pandemic was ‘completely wrong'.

The inquiry continues.