New NHS Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals funding
Please note that this funding will be available to new students who start a course from or after 1st August 2017.
What Courses does the new funding apply to:
- Dietetics
- Occupational therapy
- Optometry
- Orthotics and prosthetics
- Physiotherapy
- Podiatry/chiropody
- Radiography (diagnostic and therapeutic)
- Speech and language therapy
- Operating department practitioner
- Nursing
- Midwifery
What funding do you need to apply for?
You need to apply for Student Finance in the same way as non-health professionals from Student Finance England. Details of the main funding you are entitled to can be found on our Student Finance 19/20 page, this application will include grants for dependants and Disabled Student Allowance
Part-time students
As part of transitional arrangements in place for funding, there will be maintenance bursaries available to students beginning a part-time course in 2018/2019 at a handful of Universities. Plymouth University is not one of the Universities that will be offering details of those that are offering it can be found here: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/funding-update-postgraduate-dental-therapy-and-dental-hygiene-students
Students with previous degrees
If you already have a degree but plan to pursue a second degree in nursing, midwifery or another health-related subject, you’ll have access to student loans through the student loans system. However, unlike the current NHS system, if you decided to swap from Nursing to midwifery (having started Nursing in September 2018 and making the swap afterwards), then any years of study that you have done as part of your nursing degree will be counted as years of previous study and may affect the amount of funding available for you start a midwifery degree.
Additional funding available
In light of these changes to the NHS bursary, the Learning Support Fund has been set up to help students with costs incurred from the compulsory clinical placements that are a part of nursing, midwifery and other health courses.
What is the Learning Support Fund?
Some funding will be available to those students with child dependants; in cases of severe hardship; and where excess travel and extra accommodation expenses have been incurred as part of placements.
Students must meet the following criteria to apply:
- usually live in England
- be studying on an eligible programme at a university in England
- be in receipt, or accepted for, a student loan be actively involved in training, whether academic or practice
Details about these will be made public in the near future by the NHSBSA - we’ll update this page as we hear more.