• Chancellor announces £210 million funding boost for frontline NHS staff
• includes funding for a £1,000 personal development budget for every nurse, midwife and allied health professional to support their personal learning and development needs over three years
• wider education and training budgets will also get a funding boost to support delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan
• funding is part of drive to make the health service the best place to work, keep nurses within our NHS by supporting long-term career progression, and improve patient care

The £210 million funding boost in financial year 2020/21 is part of the Spending Round, which will set departments’ budgets for the next financial year.

The Spending Round will focus on public services, including the recruitment of 20,000 extra police officers and billions of pounds in additional funding for schools, and delivering the government’s promises on the NHS.

The increase to national training budgets for frontline health professionals across the NHS is part of the government’s commitment to improving patient care and securing a sustainable future for the NHS through the Long Term Plan.

Access to additional training is regularly cited as an issue affecting morale and retention for non-medical staff, especially nurses. This funding will help them to develop rewarding, lifelong careers in the health service.

The funding boost announced today will help nurses advance their careers, develop new clinical skills to enhance the care they are able to provide to patients, obtain advanced practice qualifications and move more easily between different roles in different parts of the NHS – for example moving from hospital to community care – to deliver the ambitions set out in the Long Term Plan.

This is part of a wider drive to improve recruitment, retention and staff morale through the development of the first ever NHS People Plan, led by NHS Improvement Chair Dido Harding and NHS Chief People Officer Prerana Issar.

Every nurse, midwife and allied health professional working across NHS hospital and community care and general practice will have access to a personal training budget of more than £1,000 over three years to support their personal learning and development needs, known to nurses as their revalidation cycle.

In addition to the personal development budgets provided centrally by government for this year, employers will also be expected to provide additional funding locally to invest in their staff.

More than 200,000 nurses are also continuing to benefit from pay rises under the Agenda for Change pay deal. Reforms also mean the starting salary for a newly qualified nurses will be £24,907 in 2020/21, 12.6% higher than in 2017/18.