Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord O’Shaughnessy on 7 February (HL Deb, col 1601), whether Health Education England conducted a risk assessment of the change in funding for nursing education from bursaries to loans, prior to the introduction of the policy.

As part of the Government’s public consultation on healthcare education funding reforms in 2016, an economic impact assessment and equality analysis was undertaken by the Department. The Government response published on 21 July 2016 also included a revised economic impact assessment and equality impact assessment.

Copies of the equality impact assessment Equality Analysis (Response to consultation), Reforming healthcare education funding: creating a sustainable future workforce, and the economic impact assessment Reforms to funding and financial support for nursing, midwifery and AHP Bursary students (SR 2015), are attached.