Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what additional resource is being allocated to Health Education England for higher education institutions to cover the placement training costs for additional nursing degree students in (1) 2017–18, and (2) 2018–19.

On 1 August 2017, the Government announced additional funding to support clinical placements required in 2017-18 as a result of the increase in training places. Health Education England confirmed that funding will be made available for up to 1,500 additional clinical placements in England for nursing, midwifery and allied health pre-registration degree courses from the 2017-18 academic year.

In order to meet the growing need for more registered nurses in the future, on 3 October 2017, my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced a further increase in the number of available clinical placements for undergraduate nurse degrees. This would result in an increase of over 5,000 nurse training places available each year from 2018-19, an increase of 25% from 20,680 available in 2016-17 to 25,850 in 2018-19.

The payments for these placements will be made in line with the tariff prices in the education and training tariff guidance document, published annually by the Department.

A copy of 2017-18 Education & Training placement tariffs is attached.