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 adequacy of funding support for student paramedics.

The NHS Learning Support Fund (LSF) was implemented in 2017 to ensure course sustainability so that subjects previously funded through National Health Service bursaries continued to offer some non-repayable funding for the unique characteristics of these courses – such as placement length, clinical placement requirements and student demographic. The LSF is applicable only to those courses which, at the time, were within the scope of the education funding reforms in 2017.

In 2017 the route into paramedicine had various education and funding models which did not include access to an NHS Bursary, therefore it was not part of the funding reforms and students were not eligible to access LSF funding.

From March 2018 paramedicine became an all degree subject, with students accessing loans and allowances from the Student Loans Company. In line with the general student population and depending on personal circumstances, students can access funding for all their tuition fees and a maintenance loan of between £7,300 and £11,300 a year.

There are no immediate plans, within the current spending review period, to review those professions which can access the LSF.