Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many training places for nursing students there were in England in the 2023-24 financial year; and how many places there will be in the (a) 2024-25 and (b) 2025-26 financial year.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Since 2017, universities have set the number of available nursing training places based on market demand. The Department does not set figures for the number of places. Data published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service shows that the number of accepted applicants to undergraduate nursing courses in England for 2023 was 20,790.

The NHS Long term Workforce Plan published in June 2023 outlines the nursing training intakes which underpin the plans ambitions across academic rather than financial years, and NHS England will work with the university sector to help achieve this. Across all nursing training intakes, including undergraduate, postgraduate and apprenticeships, these are 32,124 in 2025 academic year, and 33,981 in 2026 academic year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the underlying cause of the fall in each of the past three years in applications to university nursing courses, as reported by the Financial Times on 15 February, and what action they are taking to reverse the trend.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The drop in nursing applicants follows unprecedented demand for healthcare courses during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the number of applicants continues to outstrip the places on offer. Nursing training places are competitive, and lead to an attractive and important career in the National Health Service.

We are working closely with NHS England, universities and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service to ensure everyone who wants to pursue a rewarding healthcare career in nursing has the support and opportunities to do so.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department has made of the necessary proportion of full time equivalent general nurses who become full time equivalent specialist nurses after accreditation to meet NHS workforce need.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information on the number and proportion of nurses who become specialist nurses after accreditation is not held centrally. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) sets the standards for education for the nursing profession. There is though no regulator required post registration educational preparation for most specialist nursing roles. An employer would be responsible for creating the number of specialist nursing posts they require, based on population need. It would be expected that an organisation would develop registered nurses into specialist roles, with support from regional funding. This funding enables the development of, for example, advanced practitioners and nurse prescribers.

The NMC do publish data on registered Specialist Community Public Health Practitioners who hold specific recordable qualifications. This will not include all postgraduate training and nurses may be employed in a range of settings inside and outside of the English National Health Service. The data is available at the following link:

https://www.nmc.org.uk/about-us/reports-and-accounts/registration-statistics/

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan set out that the NHS would focus on expanding the number of clinicians, including nurses, who train to take up enhanced and advanced roles, and work as part of multidisciplinary teams that have the right skills to meet the changing needs of patients. Supporting clinicians to train as enhanced and advanced practitioners will also help to retain staff by offering a valuable career progression opportunity.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets the ambition of training at least 3,000 advanced practitioners in 2023/24 and 2024/25, and increasing the number in training further to 5,000 a year by 2028/29. By 2031/32, we expect that more than 6,300 clinicians will start training to become advanced practitioners each year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of full time equivalent general nurses become full time equivalent specialist nurses after accreditation.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information on the number and proportion of nurses who become specialist nurses after accreditation is not held centrally. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) sets the standards for education for the nursing profession. There is though no regulator required post registration educational preparation for most specialist nursing roles. An employer would be responsible for creating the number of specialist nursing posts they require, based on population need. It would be expected that an organisation would develop registered nurses into specialist roles, with support from regional funding. This funding enables the development of, for example, advanced practitioners and nurse prescribers.

The NMC do publish data on registered Specialist Community Public Health Practitioners who hold specific recordable qualifications. This will not include all postgraduate training and nurses may be employed in a range of settings inside and outside of the English National Health Service. The data is available at the following link:

https://www.nmc.org.uk/about-us/reports-and-accounts/registration-statistics/

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan set out that the NHS would focus on expanding the number of clinicians, including nurses, who train to take up enhanced and advanced roles, and work as part of multidisciplinary teams that have the right skills to meet the changing needs of patients. Supporting clinicians to train as enhanced and advanced practitioners will also help to retain staff by offering a valuable career progression opportunity.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets the ambition of training at least 3,000 advanced practitioners in 2023/24 and 2024/25, and increasing the number in training further to 5,000 a year by 2028/29. By 2031/32, we expect that more than 6,300 clinicians will start training to become advanced practitioners each year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what training the NHS provides to nursing staff on (a) accountability and (b) reporting (i) suspicious activities and (ii) concerns.

Answered by Will Quince

All registered nurses must uphold the Code of Practice set by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). The NMC can act if those on their register fail to uphold the Code.

All National Health Service organisations and others providing NHS healthcare services in primary and secondary care in England are required to adopt the national Freedom to Speak Up policy as a minimum standard to help normalise speaking up for the benefit of patients and workers, including nursing staff. Its aim is to ensure all matters raised are captured and considered appropriately and the policy should be clear and regularly communicated to support learning and improvement. It is the individual employer’s responsibility to ensure that all mandatory training is completed by employees.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, published on 3 July 2023, for what reason he plans to reduce the number of trainee children's nurses.

Answered by Will Quince

NHS England’s initial assessment is that there is currently a sufficient number of training places to meet demand for children’s nursing, but this will be kept under review. The modelling within this Plan will be independently verified and further information will be provided in due course.

The model will be kept up to date, aligning service, finance and workforce planning much more closely together in future years. As programme teams collate more data, the impact of integrated care systems feeds through and as our actions start to be delivered, we can more precisely predict workforce demand.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of the restoration of the nurse’s bursary.

Answered by Will Quince

The Student Loans Company provides the primary funding support package for students in further education. Student loan repayments are unlike commercial loans, with built-in protections, including repayments linked to income and not based on interest rates or the amount borrowed, and with outstanding loan amounts written off after 30 years. Student loans are subsidised by the taxpayer, this is a conscious investment in the skills and people of this country.

In addition to this, eligible nursing students have access to supplementary funding support via the NHS Learning Support Fund, which offers a non-repayable grant of £5,000 per academic year plus additional grants and supports depending on their circumstances.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made how many student nurses will be unable to access the expanded free hours offer in 2024/25.

Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero

The department does not hold the data on how many student nurses will be unable to access the expanded free hours offer in 2024/25.

In the Spring Budget 2023, the government announced a number of transformative reforms to childcare for parents, children, and the economy. By 2027/28, the government will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.

The announcement included the expansion of the 30 hours free childcare offer, through which eligible working parents in England will be able to access 30 hours of free childcare per week for 38 weeks per year from when their child is 9 months old to when they start school. The key objective of this measure is to support parental participation in the labour market, which is why the offer is conditional on work.

All students who work in addition to their studies and earn the equivalent of at least 16 hours a week at National Minimum/Living Wage, and under £100,000 adjusted net income per year, will be eligible for this offer. If they are unable to meet this threshold, they will remain eligible for the universal 15 hours of free early education which is available to all three and four-year-olds, regardless of family circumstances.

The government is not currently planning to extend the income criteria for 30 hours free childcare. We recognise the value of parents continuing in education and provide a range of support for students in further or higher education to support them with childcare.

Support available to full-time students with dependent children includes the Childcare Grant and Parents’ Learning Allowance. Entitlement to these grants is based on a student’s household income.

For additional financial support, since September 2020, all eligible full-time nursing, midwifery, paramedic, and other allied health profession students have been able to receive a non-repayable training grant through the NHS Learning Support Fund of £5,000 per academic year. Eligible full-time students with child dependants can also access a further £2,000 per academic year through the Learning and Support Fund. Eligible students studying part-time receive a pro-rated amount of support depending on their intensity of study compared to a full-time course.

Further information on the childcare offers available to parents is available at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of development and training needs in the nursing workforce.

Answered by Will Quince

The Government has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan for the next 15 years, which will look at the mix and number of staff required and will set out the actions and reforms needed across the National Health Service, including nurses.

The Government continues to support career progression by investing in continued professional development to help clinical staff advance their careers, develop new clinical skills to enhance the care they are able to provide to patients, obtain advanced practice qualifications and move more easily between different roles in different parts of the NHS.

Programmes such as apprenticeships and blended learning offer new routes into healthcare professions, including nursing. Health Education England, now part of NHS England, recently published the Educator Workforce Strategy, setting out actions that will lead to sufficient capacity and quality of educators to allow the growth in healthcare workforce that is needed to deliver care now and in the future.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 4.163-4.166 of the Spring Budget 2023, HC 1183, published on 15 March 2023, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of that announcement on student nurses dependant children.

Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero

In the Spring Budget 2023, the government announced a number of transformative reforms to childcare for parents, children and the economy. By 2027/28, the government will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.

The announcement included the expansion of the 30 hours free childcare offer, through which eligible working parents in England will be able to access 30 hours of free childcare per week for 38 weeks per year from when their child is 9 months old to when they start school. The key objective of this measure is to support parental participation in the labour market, which is why the offer is conditional on work.

All apprentices and students, including postgraduate researchers, who work in addition to their studies and earn the equivalent of at least 16 hours a week at national minimum/living wage, and under £100,000 adjusted net income per year, will be eligible for this offer. If they are unable to meet this threshold, they will remain eligible for the universal 15 hours of free early education, which is available to all 3 and 4-year-olds, regardless of family circumstances.

The government is not currently planning to extend the income criteria for 30 hours free childcare. The department recognises the value of parents continuing in education and provides a range of support for students in further or higher education to support them with childcare.

For example, support available to full-time students includes the Childcare Grant and Parents’ Learning Allowance. These schemes are available for full-time students with dependent children.

For additional financial support, since September 2020, all eligible full-time nursing, midwifery, paramedic, and other allied health profession students can receive a non-repayable training grant through the NHS Learning Support Fund of £5,000 per academic year. Eligible full-time students with child dependants can also access a further £2,000 per academic year. Eligible students studying part-time will receive a pro-rated amount of support, depending on their intensity of study compared to a full-time course.

The government introduced new support packages for students starting postgraduate master’s degree courses from the 2016/17 academic year onwards and postgraduate doctoral degree courses from 2018/19 onwards. These loans are not based on income and are intended as a contribution to the cost of study. They can be used by students according to their personal circumstances to cover the costs of fees and living costs, including childcare. The new support packages have provided a significant uplift in support for postgraduate students while ensuring the student support system remains financially sustainable.

Students studying on postgraduate courses can apply for loans towards their course fees and living costs, up to £11,836 in 2022/23 for new students undertaking postgraduate master’s degree courses and up to £27,892 in 2022/23 for new students undertaking postgraduate doctoral degree courses.

Further information on the childcare offers available to parents can be found at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.

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 impact of the pause in procurement of district nursing training courses in September 2023 on (a) the number of district nursing training places and (b) patient safety in the community.

Answered by Will Quince

In order to build and sustain the district nursing workforce, NHS England has increased the number of district nurse places available for 2023/24. NHS England does not anticipate a disruption to education provision whilst it undertakes its procurement exercise to secure programmes ready for September 2024 starts.

Found: Nurses: Training 10 July 2023 | UIN 192386 Asked by: Damien Moore To ask the Secretary of State

Found: This includes 42% of learning disability nurses and 30% of both adult nurses and mental health nurses

Found: This includes 42% of learning disability nurses and 30% of both adult nurses and mental health nurses

Found: support is provided as part of care with the majority of practitioners being Registered Mental Health Nurses