Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 23 April 2018 to Question 135422, when his Department plans to publish the information commissioned from UCAS on the number of applicants for university nursing courses in the 2018 undergraduate cycle by (a) by field of nursing and (b) English region.

Health Education England commissioned data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) for the 2018 application cycle and this data was received by the Department for ongoing monitoring of nursing applications.

This data was shared by UCAS under an agreement that requires it to be kept in confidence and used for internal purposes.

The current application cycle finishes on 23 October and the Department has agreed a timetable with UCAS that allows this data to be published in December 2018.