Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to his announcement of 4 October 2016, that up to 1,500 extra medical training places will be made available from September 2018, whether those additional students will be supported by the same (a) undergraduate fee and (b) Higher Education Funding Council for England banding payments as existing medical students.

National Health Service providers will receive clinical placement funding for the minimum number of students that Health Education England forecast are required to meet the longer-term workforce needs of the NHS.

In early 2017, the Department plans to run a public consultation on its proposals to expand domestic undergraduate medical training places by up to 1,500 per year, from the academic year 2018-19.

For the 2017-18 academic year, undergraduate medical students undertaking the first four years of their courses will qualify for the same tuition fee loan and living costs support package from the Student Loans Company as other full-time undergraduate students. For years five and six of their courses, these students will continue to qualify for NHS bursaries and an additional reduced rate non-means tested loan for living costs from the Student Loans Company.

Teaching grants for medical students will also continue under the Office for Students (which is expected to assume Higher Education Funding Council for England’s funding responsibility from April 2018) reflecting the high-cost of the subject.