A significant amount of work has taken place to date, in collaboration with the Department of Health, to increase the number of places in disciplines with acute health care and medical skills shortages. There are some fundamental issues, which are in the control of the health sector, which must be solved to enable expansion. These relate to guarantees of clinical placements, detailed and robust workforce planning projections and engagement with regulators. In addition to qualifying additional health professionals, success in the recruitment and retention of health professionals by the health sector will be key.In July 2022, I announced an increase in medicine places for EU students in Irish Medical Schools, alongside the Minister for Health. The agreement reached with the medical schools led to an increase of 60 places in September 2022, climbing to 120 in September 2023, and up to 200 by 2026. This will mean by 2026 an additional 200 students will commence medicine each year.In July 2023, the creation of over 400 additional healthcare places in higher education institutions in the State was announced. This represents meaningful additionality within existing infrastructure, and it comes on top of substantial expansion in nursing in recent years.My Department is a key member of the Steering Group for Disability Workforce chaired by Minister Rabbitte and works closely with colleagues in the Department for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, as well as the Department of Health and HSE on expanding the workforce across therapy disciplines. Additionally there has been extensive engagement with regards to ring-fenced places in Northern Ireland for students from the Republic in key healthcare and therapy areas. Eighty (80) once-off additional places in allied health professions were made available to ROI students in Ulster University in September 2023. These included 30 places in Physiotherapy, 28 in Occupational Therapy and 10 in Speech and Language Therapy. The Department of Health is separately funding 140 nursing students in both Queens University Belfast and Ulster University.My priority is to ensure that we build capacity in a sustainable way which will allow for steady growth and forward planning by both the health and higher education sectors for a graduate pipeline to meet the needs of the health system and society as a whole.My Department will continue to work closely with the Department of Health to progress this work.
