Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to increase the number of clinical placements available to nurses; and if so, (1) by how many, and (2) when.

Individual higher education institutions are responsible for working with placement providers and Health Education England (HEE) to ensure an adequate number of clinical placements are available for students. Since 2019/20, HEE has invested approximately £55 million to support additional placement capacity and simulated learning capacity. This is in addition to an annual £180 million allocated via the Education and Training Tariff to placement providers. There are currently 120,000 nursing, midwifery and allied health profession students in training in England. In 2021, there were more than 30,000 acceptances for nursing and midwifery undergraduate programmes, a 28% increase compared to 2019.