Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of ending the NHS bursary system on (a) female, (b) BME, and (c) older students.

A preliminary Equality Analysis was published alongside the public consultation document on 7 April 2016. This document assesses the potential effect of the replacement of National Health Service bursaries by student loans for all the protected characteristics of the Public Sector Equality Duty (Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010).

The Equality Analysis and the government consultation can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changing-how-healthcare-education-is-funded