£12 million for Welsh health professionals training and education

The number of commissioned nurse training places available in Wales will increase by 10 per cent in 2018 as part of a £107 million package to support education and training programmes for healthcare professionals.

This is an increase of £12 million over last year’s package.

The funding will allow over 3,500 new students to join healthcare education programmes across Wales. Nurse training places will rise by 1,911, with increases in all four nursing fields.

The investment package also includes a 10 per cent increase in physiotherapy and occupation therapy training places, additional health visitor training places, maintenance of all other levels of training places commissioned in 2017 including the 40 per cent increase in midwifery training places, and a further cohort of physician associate training places available from September 2018, on the same basis as 2017.

In addition, as part of the two year budget deal with Plaid Cymru for 2018/19 and 2019/20, £2 million per year will be used to support a Welsh Buurtzorg pilot of neighbourhood nursing care, of which £1.4 million for each year will be used to support the education and training programmes for district nurses including supporting the release of nurses to train.

The investment is in addition to the extra £500,000 announced earlier this year to support more medical training posts.

Vaughan Gething, Welsh Health Secretary, said: “The austerity policy pursued by the UK government has significantly impacted our budget and in those circumstances training is often one of the first casualties. But this is a short-sighted approach. Instead we are actually increasing investment in training, despite the budget cuts, in order to secure the long-term future of the health service.

“I am very proud we are once again increasing training places for nurses, midwives, physiotherapist, occupational health works and health visitors. This package of support will also maintain investment in training places for other key workers including health care scientists, paramedics, dental hygienists, therapists and radiographers.

“Together with our successful Train, Work, Live campaign to bring trainee doctors and other health professional to Wales, this demonstrates the Welsh government’s commitment to ensuring the NHS has the workforce it needs to deliver high quality care now and in the future.”