Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government why (1) paramedic science degrees are excluded from the Equivalent or Lower Qualifications exemption list, and (2) paramedic science students with previous degrees are denied access to student finance; and what assessment they have made of whether this exclusion is consistent with the inclusion of paramedics on the list of allied health professionals who are eligible for NHS grant funding.

As part of the reforms to healthcare education funding, we provided an exemption from equivalent or lower qualification (ELQ) rules for new students starting undergraduate pre-registration nursing, midwifery and certain allied health profession courses from academic year 2017/18 to allow students to receive support for these courses as a second course.

Paramedic science courses were not included in the reforms noted above as they were not previously part of the NHS bursary system (paramedic science students were already part of the standard student finance system) and therefore they were not included in the list of allied health professions exempt from the ELQ rules.