Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of training a UK citizen as a nurse; and what assessment he has made of how this figure compares with the costs of recruiting nurses from overseas.

The Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent estimates that the average cost of training a nurse in 2013 was £78,604. This figure reflects the total cost of training and therefore includes costs funded through the public purse, including the NHS bursary, and by the student.

National Health Service organisations are best placed to decide how many staff they employ and how best to recruit those staff to meet services tailored to the needs of their patients and local communities, to deliver safe care.