Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of trends in the level of pharmacy students in Walsall South constituency.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, backed by over £2.4 billion to fund additional education and training places over the next five years, sets out the ambition to increase training places for pharmacists across England by nearly 50% to around 5,000 by 2031/32, and to grow the number of pharmacy technicians. Increasing training places will increase the number of pharmacy students, including those choosing to study in schools of pharmacy in proximity to Walsall South constituency.