THE number of new apprentices in the NHS has fallen by more than a third, Department for Education statistics have revealed.

Labour pointed out that “buried in the figures” were “embarrassing admissions” that just 20 people had started the government’s flagship Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship in the six months to January this year.

There were just 10 nursing associate starts in the same period.

The number of new apprentices has fallen by 36 per cent since the same point in 2015-16.

Nursing apprenticeships were announced by then health secretary Jeremy Hunt in November 2016.

The Department of Health said then that 1,000 apprentice nurses could join the NHS each year and Mr Hunt later pledged an additional 12,500 nursing associate apprenticeships.

A total of 2,500 of these had been expected by April this year, but ministers have now admitted, in a response to a parliamentary question tabled by shadow education secretary Angela Rayner, that only 1,018 nursing associates were taken on.

This means that the target has been missed by 1,482 places — nearly 60 per cent.

The government has also said that it aims to take on 100,000 NHS apprentices by 2020, but, based on the recruitment level shown in the latest data, this target will be missed by over 26,000 places.
 
Ms Rayner said: “They are failing the people who deserve decent care and the people who deserve decent jobs.
 
“The next Labour government will restore the NHS bursary and end the NHS pay cuts, tackling the nursing crisis and ensuring that patients get the care they need.”

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said Tory health ministers had made the staffing crisis even worse by scrapping the nursing bursary at a time when there are 40,000 vacant nursing posts.

Lamiat Sabin is the Morning Star’s Parliamentary Reporter