Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many training places he plans to commission in England for new entrants to become (a) nurses and (b) midwives in each year between 2016 and 2020.

Health Education England (HEE) is responsible for ensuring that the workforce has the right numbers, skills, values and behaviours to meet the needs of patients.

HEE produces an annual Workforce Plan for England, with the 2016/17 plan scheduled to go to the HEE Board in December 2015 and published shortly after. This will include details of the nursing and midwifery commissions for 2016/17.

As a result, there is no forecast available beyond the 2015/16 commissions data published in the 2015/16 workforce plan in December 2014.