Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate the Government has made of the number of training places for nurses required by the NHS in each of the next five years.

Health Education England (HEE) was established and has been mandated by the Government to provide national leadership on education, training and workforce development in the National Health Service. As one of the arm’s length bodies to help improve the quality of care delivered to patients, it ensures that the future workforce is available in the right numbers with the right skills, values and competencies to meet patient needs today and tomorrow.

HEE operate an annual comprehensive planning process to ensure their investments meet the future needs of the population. This process determines the education commissioning volumes for the following financial year and are published in the Workforce Plan for England.

The current workforce plan for England for 2015-16 published in December 2014 can be found at the following link:

http://hee.nhs.uk/work-programmes/workforce-planning/

HEE will publish its next annual National Workforce Plan for England by the end of December 2015.