To ask the Minister of Health what consideration is he giving to increasing the bursary for nursing and midwifery students to match rising living costs.

The evidence shows that the current bursary arrangements in Northern Ireland continue to be very effective in attracting and retaining high quality nursing and midwifery students. Despite having increased the annual number of places on the pre-registration nursing and midwifery programmes commissioned by this Department by 87% since the 2015/16, the local universities continue to receive multiple applications for each place across all their programmes. Indeed, overall interest for 2021 entry increased by nearly 30% over the previous year. The universities also report continued very low levels of attrition out of these programmes.

While the student support arrangements are kept under continuous review, I have no plans to increase the bursary.