Nurses: Training

(asked on 14th November 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to encourage more people to train to become specialist (a) mental health and (b) learning disability nurses.


Answered by
Philip Dunne Portrait
Philip Dunne
This question was answered on 22nd November 2017

Health Education England is proactively encouraging more people to train to become mental health and learning disability nurses through a number of initiatives including:

- In order to meet the growing need for more registered nurses in the future across all nurse disciplines, on 3 October 2017, my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced an increase in the number of additional clinical placements for undergraduate degrees. This would result in an increase of over 5,000 nurse training places available each year from 2018/19; an increase of 25% from 20,680 available in 2016/17 to 25,850 in 2018/19;

- Supporting the system wide fast-track graduate route; an accelerated postgraduate nurse programme for Mental Health and Learning Disabilities that began in September 2017 to attract high-achieving graduates into a career in nursing. The aim is to help address workforce capacity and support the development of future nurse leaders in key areas, targeting mental health and learning disabilities in the first instance;

- Ensuring nurses in other sectors have the opportunities within their competency frameworks to develop their skills further to work in mental health and learning disability nursing;

- Commissioning of focus groups and polls of potential and existing trainees to understand better the obstacles, increase support offered and increase the profile and attractiveness of careers in mental health; and

- Training of the clinical workforce, including mental health and learning disability nurses in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a matter for each of the devolved administrations in those countries.

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