Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to improve access to opportunities for people to train to become nurses while working in the NHS.

Developing new work based routes into nursing is a priority for the Department.

That is why we have developed the new Nursing Associate role and Nursing Degree Apprenticeship which will open up routes into the registered nursing profession for thousands of people from all backgrounds and allow employers to grow their own workforce.

The first 1,000 Nursing Associates were recruited to commence their training in January and the second wave of a further 1,000 Nursing Associates are due to commence training next month.