Health Professions: Training

(asked on 6th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce the financial effect of tuition fees on healthcare students.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 11th February 2021

The Government keeps the funding arrangements for all National Health Service health professionals’ education under close review, to ensure that students are appropriately supported.

The Government has already introduced new maintenance funding for many healthcare courses. In September 2020, the Department introduced the new, non-repayable, training grant of at least £5,000 per academic year, for all eligible new and continuing pre-registration nursing, midwifery and most allied health profession students studying at English universities, with a further £3,000 available to support eligible students studying in hard to recruit areas or those studying a specialist subject as well as support for childcare costs. This grant is in addition to funding provided by the Students Loan Company and grants available through the ‘NHS Learning Support Fund’ such as travel and dual accommodation expenses, parental support and an exceptional hardship fund.

Student loans are income contingent and only need to be repaid from their statutory repayment date, which for most undergraduate students is the April after students finish their course. Monthly repayments are always linked to income, not to interest rates or the amount borrowed. Repayments are taken directly from salary at a rate of 9% above the repayment threshold, which is currently £26,575 annually and will rise to £27,295 from April this year. Furthermore, if a borrower stops working, or their income drops below the threshold, repayments will stop and only start again when income exceeds the threshold.

At the end of the 30-year period any outstanding loan amount is written off at no detriment to individual borrowers.

Healthcare students will continue to be required to pay tuition fees and there are no plans for a specific debt write-off or reimbursement scheme for these students. There have been no specific discussions at Cabinet level on the reimbursement of tuition fees for current nursing, midwifery and allied healthcare students.

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