Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many students have applied to courses starting in Autumn (a) 2017 and (b) 2018 to be a Nursing Associate in (i) Gloucester and (ii) England.

Recruitment data provided by Health Education England from the Bristol Online Survey completed in May 2017 shows 264 nursing associate applications in Gloucester. Nationally there were 8,003 Nursing Associate applications in 2017.

Of these applicants, 2,023 nursing associate trainees in total were recruited in England in 2017, of these 33 were within Gloucester.

Figures for 2018 applications and start numbers are not yet available.

Broadening routes into nursing is a priority for the Department. Following the success of the first year of nursing associate pilot programmes, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced in October 2017 plans to train 5,000 nursing associates through the apprentice route in 2018 and a further 7,500 in 2019.