Chamber and committees

The training costs for an average nursing or midwifery student is in the region of £60,000 and a full breakdown of these costs including teaching grants, tuition fees, bursary and the various allowances was reported in S6W-28706 on 6 August 2024.

In the academic year of 2021-22, there were 190 entrants to first degree courses at a Scottish university on midwifery courses. Training costs for the 190 Scots Domiciled students for 3 years would be in the region of £11.4 million.

However combined with student attrition / withdrawal, pauses in education due to academic failure, ill health or maternity leave taken into account, the full cohort of students would not be expected to graduate in 3 years. Of those delayed students, many will go on to complete their programmes after 4 or even 5 years.

Vacancies fluctuate across NHS Scotland Boards and by specialism but vacancies will continue to be advertised across all Boards as they arise over coming months allowing graduates additional opportunities to apply. Health Boards are autonomous institutions, separate from the Scottish Government, and as such are responsible for recruitment. The Scottish Government’s role is to set policies and frameworks at a national level, and Health Boards, as employers, are responsible in recruiting graduates through fair and consistent recruitment practices. In some specialist areas the workforce profile means that turnover is lower and so anticipatory recruitment is more challenging than in higher volume / higher turnover roles.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.