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 for nursing courses on the volume of applications for such courses made by mature students.

A preliminary Equality Analysis was published alongside the public consultation document on the 7 April 2016. The Government published a consultation response and revised Equality Analysis on the 21 July 2016. These documents provide the assessment of 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 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.