Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to encourage young adults to work for the NHS.

The National Health Service has launched its fifth consecutive national recruitment campaign ‘We are the NHS’ to inspire people to consider a career in healthcare and increase applications for healthcare courses. Healthcare students are able to apply for a range of financial support to help them through their studies. For example, eligible nursing, midwifery and allied health professional students can access a non-repayable training grant of at least £5,000 per academic year.

The Government continues to widen access to NHS careers through blended learning and apprenticeship routes, including the recently announced Medical Doctor Apprenticeship.

There were around 20,900 new NHS apprenticeships starts in 2021/22, this makes the NHS the largest employer of apprentices in the public sector by number of starts.