NHS England's Learner Support Funding (LSF) guidance document has been released.
The LSF guidance covers all those starting and continuing a course from 1 September 2020 onwards and covers multiple allied health professions including OT.
The new guidance lays out that – if you’re eligible – you can get:
- a training grant of £5,000 per academic year
- parental support of £2,000, if you have at least one dependent child under 15 years, or under 17 years if registered with special educational needs
- money back for excess travel and temporary accommodation costs (Travel and Dual Accommodation Expenses) while you're on your practice placement
- support during financial hardship (Exceptional Support Fund).
This short video is a guide to NHS England’s LSF:
Updated guidance for all four nations
In the spirit of the new guidance being released for England, we have updated our Information on funding for pre-registration studies page to give more details about accessing funding across all four nations.
Our support for the LSF
We understand that presently there is a global financial crisis which is having a real impact on all students and learners. We’ve risen to this challenge by working together and listening to the concerns of our learners.
Our Education and Policy team have represented our 8,300+ learners on programme right now – plus the voices and views of OT students generally – who will all need placements and will likely be impacted by placement travel costs alongside the general costs associated with being a learner.
We have been raising the profile of these concerns by collaborating and influencing the government, NHS England, HEIs and our placement providers.
We are pleased to advise that our voice has been heard!
You can explore the benefits of the LSF on our updated Information on funding for pre-registration studies page.
What’s next?
The conversations do not end here!
As your professional body we strive to ensure that we continually influence and improve the offer for our learners and future workforce.
We will be working with the NHS and other partners over the coming months to strengthen the voice of OT in these funding documents!