Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to expand existing routes into nursing; and if so, in what ways.

The Government offers a range of routes into nursing, from undergraduate and postgraduate degree routes to apprenticeship routes. As of 2021, we also offer a blended learning programme offering predominantly online, remote-access study. The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service’s data shows over 30,000 students accepted places to study nursing and midwifery undergraduate courses in England in the 2021 recruitment cycle. This is a 28% increase compared to the 2019 cycle.

We are also continuing to expand the registered nursing degree apprenticeship (RNDA), nursing associate (NA) apprenticeship and blended learning routes. At the end of the 2020/21 academic year, there were approximately 2,200 people commencing a RNDA compared to 304 at the start of the programme in 2017/18. There were 4,304 NA apprenticeship starters compared to 1,417 in 2017/18. Health Education England anticipate that approximately 8,500 nurses will start training using blended learning programmes over the next five years.