Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many nursing (a) apprenticeship starts and (b) apprentices there were in 2019-20.

There were 82,200 apprenticeship starts in the health, public services, and care sector subject area in the 2019/20 academic year in England. The data for this can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships/2019-20.

We want to increase the number of nursing apprenticeships and now have a complete apprentice pathway, from entry level to postgraduate advanced clinical practice in nursing. This will support people from all backgrounds to enter a nursing career in the NHS.

The number of apprenticeship starts and participating apprentices in the 2019/20 academic year on the Registered Nurse and Nursing Associate apprenticeship standards are shown in the table below:

Notes:

(1) Data source is the Individualised Learner Record.

(2) Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.

(3) There are different versions for both of these standards. These have been combined to give a single total for 2019/20.

(4) Participation is the count of funded learners that participated at any point during the year.

We are working closely with employers, Health Education England and ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care to make sure that the NHS is fully supported to recruit apprentices, both in nursing and a range of other occupations.