University Intake Targets for Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery 2024-25

2. The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) receives annual guidance from the Scottish Government’s Chief Nursing Officer’s (CNO) Directorate, providing recommended intakes for Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery Education. The CNO Directorate’s guidance for AY 2024-25 is provided as Annex A.
3. From 2015-16, the guidance from the Scottish Government has provided SFC with university intake targets for all Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery Education. This includes the ’three year’ courses which are funded through a Scottish Government ring-fenced grant, Honours Nursing provision (referred to as ‘four years honours’), and courses offered through the Open University in Scotland (OUiS).
4. Last year, the CNO Directorate set a three-year intake target, covering the period AY 2023-24, AY 2024-25 and AY 2025-26. Although announcing a three-year plan, it was stated at that time that Ministers reserved the right to review and adjust intake targets should this be required.

5. The overall intake target for Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery in AY 2024-25, as recommended by the CNO Directorate, is 4,837 students; which is unchanged from the previous two years and is as set out in year two of the three-year plan.
6. The intake target includes students with ‘home fee’ status, students from the rest of the UK (rUK), and students from the Republic of Ireland (RoI). Included in the target are 461 students that have been allocated to the seven universities delivering four year honours provision.
7. As Nursing targets have not been met over the past two years, the CNO has been working with NHS Education for Scotland (NES), the Council of Deans Health Scotland and individual institutions to find a way of making targets more realistic in terms of recruitment, on which funding will be based.
8. As a result, as well as the overall intake target, CNO has produced “soft” targets reflecting universities’ forecast recruitment for AY 2024-25. In light of the challenges universities face in recruitment and the decision to waive funding recovery for AYs 2022-23 and 2023-24, funding for AY 2024-25 will be provided based on actual recruitment, the process for which is set out below.
9. We have split out both the intake targets for AY 2024-25 and the new “soft” targets according to field of practice, as set out in the CNO’s guidance to SFC. Universities should consider the split of intakes between the four Nursing fields of practice and Midwifery when recruiting for AY 2024-25.
10. In the only other change to last year, for AY 2024-25 the decision has been made not to allocate Edinburgh Napier University a new cohort for their Shortened Midwifery programme and their intake will be for the undergraduate programme only.
11. In AY 2021-22, SFC took over the funding of Pre-Registration Nursing and Midwifery at the OUiS from the Scottish Government. This will continue in AY 2024-25, with the Scottish Government providing the associated transfer of resource to SFC and SFC allocating this funding directly to the OUiS.

12. As a result of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union (EU) and the transitional period ending in January 2021, EU students without ‘home fee’ status – starting their courses in AY 2024-25 – are not eligible for SFC funding. RoI students will also be ineligible for funding but will have access to a tuition fee loan via Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) of up to £9,250 each year. Continuing EU students (who commenced their studies prior to AY 2021-22) will continue to receive SFC funding.

13. In addition to SFC’s data collections, universities are also required to index Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery students with NES.
14. In response to concerns regarding the consistency of data submitted to NES and SFC, a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ (FAQ) document is attached as Annex B. This document includes information on intake targets, funded student places, SFC’s consolidation number, and when students should be indexed with NES.

15. From AY 2021-22, tuition fees for Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery were administered in a similar manner to other programmes and this will continue in AY 2024-25. Students with ‘home fee’ status should apply to SAAS for their tuition fees, as SFC no longer funds Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery places at the gross teaching price. Students who commenced their Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery studies with no expectation of having to pay tuition fees should not be disadvantaged by this change in policy, and if these students are unable to access tuition fee support through SAAS then universities should claim their tuition fees from SFC for AY 2024-25. We will confirm the process for claiming this in due course.
16. EU students on the previously commissioned ‘three year’ courses, who commenced their studies prior to the beginning of AY 2021-22, will continue to be funded by SFC for both tuition fees and teaching grant until the completion of their programmes. EU students who commenced their studies prior to the beginning of AY 2021-22 and are on Honours courses where universities previously invoiced Scottish Government directly, should also have their fees claimed from SFC for AY 2024-25.

17. In circumstances where students have already received UK or other EU public funds for a Higher Education course before, and it was not to study Nursing or Midwifery, they may still be eligible to receive full support to study a Nursing or Midwifery course. More information on funding for Nursing and Midwifery students can be found on SAAS’s website.

18. As set out in the University final funding allocations for AY 2024-25, it is our intention to adjust funded student places in-year to reflect actual intakes, above or below the targets. It is our expectation that universities will make every effort to achieve the “soft” targets set out in this announcement. Should any university recruit beyond the “soft” target, they will be funded in full. The process for adjusting funded places in-year is set out below:

• SFC has modelled funded places based on the existing targets that were published in April 2023 and are set out again in this announcement.
  • These funded places were set out in our Final Funding Allocations publication.
• SFC will adjust the funded places, and consolidation number, in-year to reflect universities’ actual recruitment of Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery students.
  • Funded places and funding will be adjusted for recruitment both below and above the existing targets (up to a maximum of the sector intake target).
• Actual recruitment will be based on an additional SFC data collection – ‘Early Intakes Collection’.
  • The Early Intakes Collection is already used to collect intakes data for Medicine and Dentistry – it will be extended to include Pre-registration Nursing and Midwifery.
• SFC will write to universities to confirm the revised funded places, based on actual recruitment, before the end of December 2024.

19. For AY 2024-25, SFC will recover funds from universities that under-enrol students eligible for funding against the adjusted funded places (based on actual recruitment), with a tolerance threshold of 3%. SFC will not apply penalties to universities who recruit above their consolidation number.

20. Please contact Duncan Condie, Senior Funding Policy Officer, Finance Directorate, tel: 0131 313 6671, email: dcondie@sfc.ac.uk.

Richard Maconachie FCCA
Director of Finance