Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department is providing to mitigate the (a) financial and (b) educational costs to nursing students who opted in to work in the NHS during the first wave of the covid-19 outbreak.

All nursing students in England who opted in to paid placements during the first wave of COVID-19 maintained their eligibility for relevant student support packages from the Student Loans Company, in addition to non-repayable funding through the NHS Learning Support Fund. Those students also received a salary and automatic National Health Service pension entitlement at the appropriate band.

Health Education England continues to work with system partners to ensure any impact on training and placements is minimised; including supporting universities to rearrange interrupted clinical placements and finding alternatives such as using simulation where that is appropriate. In cases where extensions to students’ courses are unavoidable, the Government will continue to ensure that appropriate financial support is made available to affected students.