Pharmacy Students access to the NHS Learning Support Fund

Several pharmacy students in Walsall South wrote to me saying they do not have access to the NHS Learning Support Fund (LSF) which is a training grant of £5,000 per academic year for students on a select list of pre-registration undergraduate or postgraduate courses. Students in pharmacy courses are not included in the list of courses eligible for the LSF which helps students gain their professional qualifications.

On 28 November 2023, I submitted a Written Question to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care asking: “What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department’s policies of trends in the level of pharmacy students in Walsall South constituency.”

The Minister for Public Health, Start for Life and Primary Care responded on 4 December 2023 saying: 

“The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, backed by over £2.4 billion to fund additional education and training places over the next five years, sets out the ambition to increase training places for pharmacists across England by nearly 50% to around 5,000 by 2031/32, and to grow the number of pharmacy technicians. Increasing training places will increase the number of pharmacy students, including those choosing to study in schools of pharmacy in proximity to Walsall South constituency.” This implies there is a shortage in the number of pharmacists in England. 

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, British Pharmaceutical Students’ Association and Pharmacy Schools Council have written to the then Minister for Health and Secondary Care Will Quince MP on 22 September 2023 with a request that pharmacy students be given access to the LSF.

I have written to the Minister for Health and Secondary Care Rt Hon Andrew Stephenson MP to make the case for pharmacy students to be given access to the NHS Learning Support Fund to help them gain their professional qualifications and meet the target set out in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.