The NHS Bursary provides funding for eligible medical or dental students who normally live in England.
If you're eligible, you could get:
You may be eligible if you're studying to become a doctor or dentist and:
If you’re studying a medical or dental course as your second degree, you may also be eligible.
To be eligible for the NHS Bursary, you need to normally live in England and be an English resident on the first day of your first academic year.
If you moved to England from somewhere else in the UK for your studies, you’re not eligible.
Information about the 2024 to 2025 academic year rates is coming soon.
The 2023 to 2024 rate is £1,000 for all students.
The 2023 to 2024 rates are:
What you can get depends on whether you’re a dependent or an independent student. You’ll need to show us evidence of your circumstances to support your claim if you apply as an independent student.
If you’re dependent, we’ll calculate your means tested bursary amount based on your parents’ income if they choose to declare it.
If you’re independent, we’ll calculate it based on your spouse, partner’s, or civil partner’s income if they choose to declare it. .
If you have income, this will also be considered when calculating your means tested bursary entitlement. We’ll need to know about any income you get from:
You do not need to tell us about any income from working on a part time or casual basis.
If your NHS Bursary application is successful, we’ll pay a tuition fee contribution directly to your university.
The 2023 to 2024 academic year tuition fee contribution rates are:
Depending on your circumstances, you may be entitled to more support. Additional allowances for the NHS Bursary are:
You can find out more about these on our Additional allowances page. If you want to learn more about CCA, TDAE or DSA, you can also visit their own pages.
If you’re on an undergraduate course lasting 5 or more years, you can apply for years 5 and 6. You can include a foundation year if it was an integral part of your course.
If you’re on a course for graduates lasting 3 years, you can apply for years 2 and 3.
If you’re on a course for graduates lasting 4 years, you can apply for years 2, 3 and 4.
If you’ve repeated any years of your course that are not eligible for the NHS Bursary, these years do not count as qualifying years. For example, if you repeat the second year of your undergraduate course, you can apply for the NHS Bursary from your course year five which is actually your sixth year of study.
If you need to repeat a year that qualifies for the NHS Bursary, you may be entitled to up to 12 months of additional bursary.
If you took an intercalation year in the first 4 years of your undergraduate degree at bachelor’s or master’s level, this counts as a qualifying year. Intercalation years at PhD level do not.
The application window for 2024 to 2025 is now open. You need to register for an NHS Bursary account or sign in to your existing account to apply.
If you've received an NHS Bursary before, we’ll send you an email inviting you to apply for 2024 to 2025.
We’ll send email invites out in groups to make sure we process all applications for the start of the academic year.
You need to apply within 9 months of the start of the academic year for your application to be accepted.
We’ll pay your NHS Bursary in 3 termly instalments once your university has confirmed you’re attending your course. You should sign in to your NHS Bursary account for details of any payments you’re due to receive.
The payment dates for Term 2 and 3 payments depend on the start month of your academic year.
If you started in June, your payment dates are:
If you started in July, your payment dates are:
If you started in August, your payment dates are:
If you started in September, your payment dates are:
If you started in October, your payment dates are:
You can read more about the NHS Bursary in our guidance booklet.