Professor Ian Cumming statement on Spending Review

Health Education England welcomes the increased investment in the NHS over the period of this spending review and will work with partners across the system to ensure it is used to deliver the best possible care for patients.

Changing how student nurse and associated health professional courses are funded has the potential to increase the overall number of graduates available to the NHS at no cost to the service, moving the funding of such courses from HEE to the Student Loans Company.

We welcome the maintenance of the rest of HEE’s budget at the same level as last year. In the context of the wider public finances this is a good position for HEE to be in.

As a result of the changes around undergraduate courses, HEE will have to modify how it delivers its statutory function to ensure the NHS has the supply of suitably qualified staff it requires, but it is important to note that this role continues to be at heart of what HEE is about.

HEE’s primary purpose of ensuring the NHS has the right staff with the right skills, values and behaviours in the right place at the right time in the right numbers remains unchanged. Our responsibility for ensuring doctors, nurses and other allied health professional students are placed in suitable clinical placements as a key part of their education remains, ensuring both the geographical, sectoral and professional spread of students the NHS needs.

The change in how nurses and allied health professionals fund their education has been brought in line with all other areas of study, but crucially the NHS, through HEE, will ensure it gets the highest quality students available through our continued planning and investment in clinical education.

We will need to ensure that we continue to focus on the highest priorities and invest specifically in areas such as primary care, emergency care, workforce transformation and new professions so that we remain at the forefront of improvements in  the quality of care for patients through improvements in the quality of education and training for a workforce that continues to grow and needs to meet the demands and aspirations of those we serve.