Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many students are expected to complete approved paramedic training courses in England in (a) 2026 and (b) 2027; how many Band 5 newly qualified paramedic posts NHS ambulance trusts plan to recruit to in each of those years; and what steps he is taking to ensure that the number of funded posts is aligned with the number of students completing paramedic training.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency publishes annual figures for entrants and qualifiers for paramedic training courses which are available at the following two links:

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/what-study

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/outcomes#qualifiers

The latest available data for qualifiers shows 3,325 across England in 2024/25.

Training places for paramedics are not centrally commissioned by the Government, instead, they are determined by local employers and education providers who decide the number of learners they admit based on learner demand and provider capacity.