NHS: Training

(asked on 18th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the criteria used by Health Education England to determine the clinical placement tariff for (a) nursing, (b) medicine and (c) allied health students.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 30th April 2019

The education and training placement tariffs for nursing, medicine and allied health professions are set by the Department in consultation with Health Education England (HEE) and NHS Improvement. Education and training tariffs are then administered by HEE. On an annual basis education and training tariffs are set taking in to account the overall quantum of funding made available to HEE as part of the Department’s arm’s length body budget setting process and taking into account delivery of the organisational priorities which are set by the Government through the annual HEE Mandate.

The undergraduate medical placement tariff was introduced in April 2013 and set at £34,623 per full time equivalent placement. The funding allocated looks to reflect the outcomes of a sample costing exercise carried out with National Health Service trusts in 2009 and was intended to cover the costs to the provider of delivering the placement. The move from local prices to a national price for undergraduate medical placements resulted in a reduction in the overall funding quantum being paid to providers. This funding was reinvested into the NHS via the non-medical tariff that was also introduced in April 2013. The increase in the available funding enabled a payment of £3,175 per full time equivalent placement to be made to placement providers. Despite the increase in funding, the need to remain within the overall funding quantum allocated for placements meant that payments for non-medical remained a contribution to the costs of delivering the non-medical placement and not reflective of the actual costs to the provider.

The postgraduate medical tariff was introduced in 2014 and involved the redistribution of the existing funding, enabling HEE to make a 50% contribution to the costs of the basic salary, alongside a clinical placement fee of £12,400.

Subsequent increases and reductions to individual tariff payments have been limited, with any changes based on a need to ensure that the total funding paid to providers through the tariffs remains within the placement budget available to HEE.

The Department is working with HEE and NHS Improvement to consider the distribution of funding across the tariffs for 2020/21.

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