Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to work with universities to help train (a) doctors, (b) nurses and (c) teachers.

The department is working closely with Higher Education Providers (HEP’s) to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to access a world class education. This remains a top priority and is fundamental to the government’s ambition to level-up skills, growth, and economic opportunity across the country.

Record numbers of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare staff will be trained in England as part of the first ever NHS Long Term Workforce Plan (LTWP), which was published in June 2023. By significantly expanding domestic education, training and recruitment, we will have more healthcare professionals working in the NHS. The LTWP will:

• Double the number of medical school places to 15,000 a year by 2031/32. To support this ambition, the government will increase the number of medical school places by a third, to 10,000 by 2028/29. This will build on the expansion of medical school places in England to 7,500 per year, a 25% increase, which the government completed in 2020 and that delivered five new medical schools. The government has accelerated the LTWP expansion by allocating 205 additional medical school places for 2024/25, a year ahead of target. The process for allocating 350 additional places for the 2025/26 academic year is underway and further details will be confirmed in due course.
• Record numbers of nurses are now working in the NHS, and the Plan will increase adult nursing training places by 92%, taking the number of total places up to nearly 38,000 by 2031/32. To support this ambition, the government will increase training places to nearly 28,000 in 2028/29. This forms part of the ambition to increase the number of nursing and midwifery training places to around 58,000 by 2031/32. The government will work towards achieving this by increasing places to over 44,000 by 2028/29, with 20% of registered nurses qualifying through apprenticeship routes compared to just 9% now. The number of nursing applicants still continues to outstrip the places on offer. Nursing and midwifery training places are competitive, and lead to an attractive and important career in the NHS.
• Introduce medical degree apprenticeships, with pilots running from 2024/25 so that by 2031/32, 2,000 medical students will train via this route. The department will work towards this ambition by growing medical degree apprenticeships to more than 850 by 2028/29

The government is backing the LTWP with over £2.4 billion over the next five years to fund additional education and training places. This is on top of increases to education and training investment, reaching a record £6.1 billion over the next two years. The department is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, the Office for Students, as well as the General Medical Council to actualise the delivery of the plan.

The department will continue to work with the sector so everyone who wants to pursue a rewarding healthcare career has the support and opportunities to do so.

There are record numbers of teachers in England’s schools, with more than 468,000 working in state-funded schools across the country, which is 27,000 (6%) more than in 2010. The department works closely with schools and universities to recruit the best teachers, in the subjects and areas they are needed most. The department has already put in place a range of measures for trainees in the 2023/24 academic, including bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000, to encourage talented trainees to apply to train in key subjects such as chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics.

The department is also offering a levelling up premium worth up to £3,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department is doubling the rates of the levelling up premium to up to £6,000 after tax. This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.

The department is also working with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) and an employer-led trailblazer group to develop the Teacher Degree Apprenticeship (TDA). The TDA will be a new route into the teaching profession, for both primary and secondary teachers, through which successful candidates will ‘earn while they learn’ and attain an undergraduate degree and qualified teacher status while working in a school.  Subject to IfATE approvals, the TDA standard will be published in spring 2024, with the candidate recruitment commencing from autumn 2024 and training commencing in autumn 2025.