In 2023, the PDA and student members launched the fair funding campaign highlighting the funding disparities among healthcare students. The campaign sought to secure pharmacy student’s access to the NHS Learning Support Fund (LSF), a government grant designed to assist healthcare students with compulsory course components, like placements.
The campaign quickly gained momentum, with hundreds of MPharm students and PDA members reaching out to their MPs to voice their concerns. MPs, including Marsha de Cordova, Kim Johnson, Yasmin Qureshi, Kate Osamor, and Priti Patel, raised the issue with the then Minister of State for the DHSC Andrew Stephenson, with even more MPs responding to members’ letters.
The PDA’s 2024 Manifesto further called on the government to invest in the pharmacy workforce, advocating for the inclusion of pharmacy undergraduates in the LSF. Mark Koziol, PDA Chairman, directly presented the issue to the Health and Social Care Committee (HSCC).
In their report following the inquiry into pharmacy, the HSCC agreed and recommended that the government extend the LSF to pharmacy students. Consequently, it has been announced in a government response from the Minister of State for Care, Stephen Kinnock MP, that the DHSC has agreed to work with NHS England to explore the introduction of a single, consistent policy for funding excess travel and accommodation costs incurred by MPharm students on placements.
This partial success marks significant progress in the campaign, but the PDA remains committed to securing fair funding for MPharm students. Starting next year, most MPharm students will graduate as Independent Prescribers, assuming greater responsibilities in their training. While NHS workforce plans are currently under review, the strategy published in 2024 included an objective to expand training places for pharmacists by 29% to around 4,300 by 2028/29, putting the NHS on the path to increasing training places by around half overall to almost 5,000 by 2031/32. Providing MPharm students access to the LSF would mark a step in the right direction to achieving the goal of increasing uptake, as well as remunerating MPharm students for their additional work.
The PDA believes that pharmacy students should be equally supported in their journey to becoming qualified healthcare professionals and will continue to reflect the critical role of pharmacy professionals in modern healthcare settings.
Learn more
- PDA launches election 2024 manifesto
- PDA’s Chairman gives evidence to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee
- Health and Social Care Committee pharmacy report
- Pharmacy: Government Response
- PDA students continue to campaign for fair funding – now with the support of their MPs!
- NHS Learning Support Fund (LSF)
Not yet a PDA member?
If you have not yet joined the PDA, we encourage you to join today and ask your colleagues to do the same.
Membership is FREE to pharmacy students, trainee pharmacists and for the first three months of being newly qualified.
Read about our key member benefits here.