Nurses: Coronavirus

(asked on 25th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to mitigate the effect on colleges of reduced student nurse intake levels as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 8th July 2020

Health Education England (HEE) is working with stakeholders and partners across the system to ensure that we continue to attract prospective students onto pre-registration programmes, reduce attrition from those programmes and support newly qualified nurses into roles within trusts. HEE is working with universities to understand the impact of COVID-19 on students being able to complete their programmes, understanding what they need to do to complete their degree and putting steps in place that will enable them to graduate and take up roles within the National Health Service.

The health and education sectors are working jointly to increase applications and places; the Government announced 5,000 more healthcare places from September. From September 2020, eligible new and continuing nursing, midwifery and most allied health profession students studying pre-registration courses at English universities will benefit from a new, non-repayable, training grant of at least £5,000 per academic year in addition to the funding available already through the Learning Support Fund and Student Loans Company.

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