Mental Health: Children’s Services

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, might I press the Minister a little further on his very last sentence, when he referred to the increased availability of nursing? I know that he is aware that there is a projected 20% drop in nurse training at this stage but, for specialist nurse training, especially mental health nurse training, the drop is even larger than 20%.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

This is something that we had the opportunity to discuss yesterday. I am aware of the concerns on this issue. The reforms are designed to take the cap off the number of places, making more places available. In the last year, something like 37,000 applicants were turned away from nursing places, which is clearly not something that we want. When there is a change in regime, clearly there may be an impact on numbers in the first year—as there have been when tuition fees have been introduced in the past—but historically that has tended to rebound.