Gamechanger for certain healthcare students: placement travel & accommodation, paid in advance of spending

Right now you book the train, you pay for the accommodation, and then you claim and wait. That is often hundreds of pounds of your own money sitting with the NHS for weeks, months or years. This flips the order.

The claim itself is called Travel and Dual Accommodation Expenses, or TDAE. It is the part of the NHS Learning Support Fund you already use to get placement travel and accommodation back.

How it would work

• You need one TDAE claim approved first, so your first placement still works the old way. You pay, you claim, you get it back. After that you can ask for the advance.
• They pay you a sum of money before you have spent anything on the next one: £200 for travel, £400 for accommodation, or £600 for both. The bigger two only open up if a claim of yours has actually included accommodation.
• You use it for your travel and accommodation.
• You still submit your claims exactly as you do now. That is you showing them what their money went on.
• If you drop below £50 on this float, you can ask for a top-up.
• Whatever is left at the end, the part you did not end up spending, comes off your final Learning Support Fund payment. That is not a penalty, it is just balancing it out. You were advanced money you did not use, and taking it off the last payment saves you having to pay it back yourself.

There is more on how to apply, the rates, the caps and the evidence you need in NHSBSA's TDAE guide.

Which courses are covered

It covers nursing, midwifery, allied health, and dental therapy and hygiene courses, at undergraduate and postgraduate level, though some have exceptions inside them, paramedics on DipHE and FD courses for one, so check the full list of eligible courses rather than assuming yours qualifies. Foundation years are not eligible. Being on one of those courses is not enough on its own either: you also need full access to the fund, and that is what the advance is attached to rather than the name of your course. Pharmacy and healthcare science are the odd ones out, in that you can claim placement expenses but do not get the Training Grant, and the advance only goes to people who do.

You can only claim the excess, meaning the difference between getting to your placement and your normal journey to uni. If placement is cheaper to get to than your campus there is nothing to claim, and the advance is against claims.

The government's case for it is that reducing the need to find money upfront helps students get the experience they need, wherever they are, and supports the future NHS workforce.