Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the move from bursaries to student loans on the volume of applications for nursing courses at universities.

The Government’s Economic Impact Assessment found that nursing is consistently one of the most popular courses on University Central Administration Service (fifth), with 57,000 applicants for around 20,000 nursing places in 2015.

The Economic Impact Assessment also set out that a maximum £9,000 tuition fee for other subjects at higher education institutions was introduced in 2012. Between 2012 and 2014 the number of English domiciled applicants to enter full-time undergraduate courses in the United Kingdom increased by 7.5% (from 454,000 in 2012 to 487,870 in 2014).¹

The Economic Impact Assessment can be found on the following link:

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

The Government is committed to monitoring, in detail, data regarding application rates, diversity statistics and workforce supply following the implementation of the reforms.

¹ Based on data provided by UCAS to the RCN for “The Fragile Frontline” (2015) - http://royalnursing.3cdn.net/9808b89b8bfd137533_krm6b9wz7.pdf