Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the diversity of students taking (a) pre-registration physiotherapy and (b) nursing, midwifery and other allied health courses since the NHS bursary reforms in 2017.

The Department is working with relevant bodies across health and education to monitor the effects of the healthcare funding reforms on all the professions affected.

A preliminary Equality Analysis was published alongside the public consultation document on 7 April 2016. This document provided the assessment of the potential effect of the replacement of National Health Service bursaries by student loans for all the protected characteristics of the Public Sector Equality Duty (Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010).

The Equality Analysis and the Government consultation can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changing-how-healthcare-education-is-funded

A revised version of the original Equality Analysis, was published in February 2018 to accompany the reforms to pre-registration postgraduate healthcare funding.

The revised Equality Analysis can be found at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/680681/Equality_Analysis_healthcare_education_funding.pdf