To ask the Minister of Health to outline what plans are in place to increase the number of undergraduate social work training places commissioned by his Department, in light of growing workforce pressures and consistently oversubscribed university programmes.

I am pleased to say that the Department has been steadily increasing investment in additional social work student training places since 2019, beginning with 15 places on the newly-approved Degree in Social Work at the Open University. The table below provides an account of how investment in training places has increased from a baseline of 260 in 2018;

It is important to note that 349 is the largest number of commissioned social worker training places since the establishment of the NI Degree in Social Work in 2004.