Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the current attrition rate in numbers and percentage for student nurses in each year of their training at each higher education institute for each of the past three years.

Health Education England (HEE) took responsibility for commissioning pre-registration nurse education on 1 April 2013 and has a mandate deliverable to reduce attrition over the coming years. To replace the Department’s national data collection exercise, HEE has undertaken a data collection exercise to identify training output as a percentage of reported starters. The figures for the output, as a percentage of starters expressed as a projected attrition rate, in each of the last three years for which information is available are in the following table.

Attrition as a percentage of reported starters:

Source: Health Education England

HEE is determined to ensure that there is a year on year reduction in levels of attrition and will be working with universities to deliver this, including ensuring a single definition of attrition and how it is managed.