Nurses: Training

(asked on 18th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has allocated to continuing professional development for registered nursing staff in the NHS in England in each financial year from 2010-11 to 2019-20.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 2nd May 2019

The Department does not allocate funding for continuous professional development (CPD) or workforce development for the National Health Service clinical workforce or registered nursing staff. Health Education England (HEE) contributes, based on local priorities, workforce development funding, including some which may used for CPD, to local NHS employers.

The following table below sets out funding since 2013 to the latest data available. Workforce development investment prior to 2013 was managed by individual strategic health authorities for which data is not available.

Year

£ million

2013/14

190.9

2014/15

205.0

2015/16

205.0

2016/17

104.31

2017/18

83.5

2018/19

83.5

Note:

1The reduction in workforce development funding between 2015/16 and 2016/17 was transferred to spending on new nursing undergraduate courses under the previous undergraduate funding system resulting in around 3,000 extra nurses.

In addition, individual NHS employers have responsibility for supporting staff workforce development (a proportion of which may be used locally for some CPD) courses which are required to fulfil duties to work in their organisation and core employment requirements. Data on the level of workforce development and CPD investment made by individual NHS employers between 2010/11 and 2019/20 is not collected centrally. Therefore, information on the totality of workforce development or CPD funding or a breakdown by profession is not held centrally.

Following publication of the NHS Long Term Plan, HEE is currently finalising and introducing a new national methodology for allocating workforce development (a proportion of which may be used locally for some CPD) funding from 2019/20 onwards. Allocations of available workforce development (a proportion of which may be used locally for some CPD) funding provided by HEE to the NHS in England will be made using this formula once finalised.

Prior to 2019/20 Health Education England (HEE) did not use an allocation formula for its budget for workforce development funding (a proportion of which may be used locally for some CPD). Taking into account its overall allocation from the Department and the workforce priorities it is required to deliver as set in its annual mandate from Government, decisions on levels of workforce development (a proportion of which may be used locally for some CPD) investment made available via HEE were taken based on discussions with local employers via HEE regional offices. At a national level, HEE supported these discussions with guidance on how this funding should be used most effectively on proven activities and programmes across a range of professions.

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