Skip to main content

Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Andy Burnham (Labour). It was answered on Tuesday, 7 February 2017 on behalf of the Department of Health.


Nursing

Question

When the Secretary of State scrapped the nursing bursary, he claimed that his reforms would lead to an increase in nursing applications. Last week, figures from UCAS showed that there had been a drop in nursing applications of 23%—a worrying

trend when the demands of Brexit will mean that we need more home-grown nurses. Will he scrap this disastrous policy or, at the very least, give Greater Manchester the ability to opt out of it and reinstate the nursing bursary?

Answer

I urge the right hon. Gentleman not to indulge in scaremongering about the number of people applying to become nurses. There are more than two applications for each of the nursing places on offer to start next August. He needs to be careful about interpreting this early the figure for applications from EU nationals, which has gone down significantly, because it coincided with the introduction of the language test for EU nationals.


Secondary information

Type
Oral question
Reference
621 c221 
Session
2016-17
Oral question type
Supplementary
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Nurses Training
Link
View this Oral question on hansard.parliament.uk