Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the removal of student bursaries on differences in trends of the number of (a) students, (b) mature students and (c) part-time students on nursing courses in England.

In August 2017, the Government changed the funding system for pre-registration nurse training in England. New nursing, midwifery and allied health profession students studying in England moved from National Health Service bursaries to the standard student support system. The intention of the reforms is to boost participation, secure the future supply of home-grown nurses to the NHS, and enable universities to create additional nurse training places.

The standard student support system means that a typical student nurse has 25% more money to live on while they are studying than under the bursary system (albeit in the form of a student loan rather than a grant).

The interim People Plan published on 3 June 2019 sets out some of the steps needed to ensure the NHS in England have the staff they need to deliver high quality care, including growing our nursing workforce by 40,000 in the next five years.

The most recent data available from UCAS covers the B7 group of courses (nursing and midwifery courses aggregated together) rather than nursing. It is the latest position on the number of acceptances to nursing and midwifery courses as of 30 August 2019. Data for 2019 and the equivalent time point in previous years is shown in the following table.

Acceptances to nursing and midwifery courses two weeks after the start of clearing. All applicants to English providers.

Source: UCAS clearing analysis.

Nursing specific data, up to and including the 2018 end of cycle is shown in the following table. This data will be updated in December 2018.

The number of students over the last five years who accepted a place to study nursing at university is shown in the following table.

The Department does not hold data on part-time student trends.

Source: UCAS end of cycle data, 2018

Note:

- The 2016/17 academic year was the final year students starting a degree in nursing were eligible for the bursary.

- Students aged 21+ are classified as mature students for university funding purposes. The closest category in the UCAS end of cycle data was for those aged 20+.

- Nursing courses include adult, children’s, dual, learning disability, and mental health nursing.