Expansion of clinical placements gets a £15m boost from HEE

Health Education England (HEE) has pledged £15m to fund additional clinical placements across nursing, midwifery, allied health professionals (AHPs) and healthcare science, in 2021/22.

This funding will increase the number of placements offered to nursing, midwifery AHP, and healthcare students from September 2021, and will enable HEE to deliver the future health and care workforce in sufficient numbers and with the skills the NHS needs.

Education providers are anticipating a significant growth in student numbers this year across the healthcare professions. Applications in England have risen by 34% for nursing and 27% for AHPs and the expansion of clinical placements will enable providers to meet this demand.                                                                                          

The funding will be used for extra supervision, and coaching models to support growth and will be allocated regionally to ensure it meets local demand. Some of the money will also be used to evaluate the quality, impact and value of this investment and consider capacity and funding options for the future.

This funding is being provided in addition to £180m, spent each year by HEE a year on placements for around 120,000 nursing, midwifery and AHP students, as part of the clinical tariff.

The expansion project is working towards several objectives over the next year including building an infrastructure across England for placement activity and supporting the growth of placements to meet student intakes both now and in the future.

Professor Mark Radford, Chief Nurse at HEE, said: “This new and additional funding is critical for developing quality experiences and to expand nursing, midwifery, AHPs and healthcare science placements.   We are focussing this additional investment in support of supervision and support models in practice for students and increasing placement opportunities in community, primary care and social care.”