Funding healthcare - key facts

28,329 total medical (clinical and pre-clinical) full-time undergraduate FTEs in 2008-09, supported by a HEFCE grant of over £310 million.
4,604 dental (clinical and pre-clinical) full-time undergraduate FTEs in 2009-10, supported by a grant of £53 million.
Medical/dental full-time undergraduate FTEs account for 4.1 per cent of all HEFCE-funded full-time undergraduate FTEs in 2009-10.
Notional grant for medicine and dentistry is 9.3 per cent of HEFCE's mainstream teaching grant (excluding mainstream targeted allocations and widening participation) in 2009-10.
24 medical and/or dental schools in England (some linked to more than one institution).
There have been six new medical schools and one dental school opened since 1997, which represents a 71 per cent increase in medical places between 1997-98 and 2006-07
There are currently 29 Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs) in England, of which 25 have a health and social care strand.
HEIs and FECs across the country are now offering a variety of foundation degrees in health-related subjects. These are funded by HEFCE and were designed to provide employment pathways for the NHS, with the Department of Health (DH) covering the costs of staff release.

HEFCE research funding for clinical medicine for 2009-10 amounts to £309.7 million, of which £27.4 million is allocated for the training and supervision of postgraduate research (PGR) students. For the academic year 2008-09, higher education institutions in England reported a total of 4,784 PGR FTEs in clinical medicine.
HEFCE research funding for clinical dentistry for 2009-10 amounts to £13.7 million, of which £0.9 million is allocated for the training and supervision of PGR students. For the academic year 2008-09, higher education institutions in England reported a total of 182 PGR FTEs in clinical dentistry.

DH funds education and training for clinical medicine, clinical dentistry, nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions through £4.6 billion Multi-Professional Education and Training budget (2009-10 figures).
In 2009-10, DH funding is expected to support 60,100 whole time equivalent pre-registration nursing/midwifery students and 18,300 from allied health professions 3,500 scientists and 7,700 other non-medical trainees.
DH funding accounts for about one fifth of all university income.
Planned commissioning figures for 2009-10 show a small increase overall in non-medical commissions on 2008-09.

Last updated 5 February 2010