Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend not only for his question but for previous questions in relation to this area and his obvious interest and concern about it. He is right. Nationally, the numbers of looked-after and abused children in the new prevalence survey—the first since 2004—would be relatively small. We have therefore asked the statisticians to look at different ways of assessing the data and the numbers so that we can address this issue. I hope to be able to report further on that later in the new year after I have had that meeting.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

13. What steps he plans to take to increase the availability of nurse training in the NHS.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ben Gummer)]

I thank my hon. Friend for asking this question. I can tell her that we have made significant steps. In the past two years, there has been an 11% increase in nurse training places, and I anticipate that that increase will continue this year. We are providing over 23,000 full-time-equivalent additional nurses by 2019. We expect there to be an additional 10,000 nurse training places as a result of the announcements made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor last year.

[Maria Caulfield]

Speaking as a nurse, I would struggle to undertake my nurse training given the proposed changes to the bursary scheme. I know that the Minister is working very hard on this, but will he outline what additional routes into nursing are planned to help mature students and those on a low income to gain access to nurse training?

[Ben Gummer]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that there are different ways into nursing. Just a few weeks ago, we announced a massive expansion in apprenticeships across the NHS, and I anticipate that a significant number will be for those going into nursing. The new post of nursing associate is a vocational route into nursing via an apprenticeship. In addition, our reforms to bursaries will ensure that there is a 25% increase in funding to recipients, bringing it into line with the rest of the student cohort. That cohort has seen a considerable expansion in the number of students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds as a result of the reforms that we undertook in 2011 and 2012.