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Issue 12 - 07/2014
1
Student Services
Business Services Authorityprovided by…
Issue 17 - October 2015
NHS StudentBursaries
Social WorkBursaries
EducationSupport Grant
If you’re from a university, college or assessment centre that works with students who are eligible for NHS or social work bursaries, please subscribe to Bursary News. Email us at [email protected] with your full contact details and we’ll add you to our distribution list.
StudentServices
Issue 17 - October 2015 2
NH
S St
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tBu
rsar
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Soci
al W
ork
Burs
arie
s
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Supp
ort G
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Welcome to Bursary News!
Stud
ent
Se
rvic
es
Operational update for NHS Student Bursaries
Operational update for Social Work Bursaries
ESG Update
Disabled Student Allowance guide for practitioners
Reconfirmation of NHS Bursary students’ attendance
Childcare Allowance reconciliation
Tuition Fee proposal
Special Interest Groups (SIG)
Regional stakeholder events
Online guidance videos
Free bursary booklets for 2016/17
Application Window deadlineposters for 2016/17
Help us to save the taxpayer’s money!
Sending and returning evidence
Successful fraud investigation case studies
Email addresses reminder
Closure of Claro Support
Reporting concerns of fraud
Your dedicated helplines
Contents
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Welcome to this edition of Bursary News, providing information and updates from Student Services.
I’m pleased to report that we have delivered a good service to customers over the
recent peak period. The phased invite process for NHS Bursary students has proved successful, with the majority of students applying within the specified timescales. Most universities have returned Confirmation of Student Attendance (COSA) forms for new students to us in good time for us to ensure their students receive prompt payment. Thank you to all of you for your continued support.
We are in the final stages of transferring Social Work Bursary administration from Bridge House in Newcastle to Hesketh House in Fleetwood. We have notified all our customers of when the transfer will take effect, although there should be no service disruption.
I hope you find this edition of Bursary News useful and welcome any ideas you have for any future articles. Please email us at: [email protected] with your suggestions.
Kerry HemsworthHead of Service - Students
Issue 17 - October 2015 3
Operational update for NHS Student Bursaries
All NHS students who are eligible to apply for a bursary must make an online application every year through their Bursary Online Support System (BOSS) account. For more information about re-applying and about BOSS, please visit our website at http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Students/3942.aspx
Your students can find the tables below on our website at the appropriate link. These tables clearly show students when they can apply/reapply for their NHS Bursary and what their deadline is. Other useful guidance on making a bursary application is also provided on these web pages.
Continuing Students
New Students
The table below outlines our current position for the 2015/16 intake:
New students:
We are currently processing Confirmation of Student Attendance (COSA) forms for all new students.
To date we have processed 412 COSA forms for a total of 21,866 students.
Total applications expected 22,801
Total applications approved 19,851
Total applications in process 1,538
Total applications pended (awaiting evidence/further evidence) 4,034
Total number of students not applied 0
(We have received approximately 2,000 more new student bursary applications than confirmed commissioned numbers)
Continuing students:
Total applications expected 48,974
Total applications approved 43,089
Total applications in process 1,926
Total applications pended (awaiting evidence/further evidence) 3,362
Total number of students not applied 597
From September 2014, we can only accept bursary applications (which must include all supporting evidence) that we receive within six months of the start date of the student’s academic year.
Any bursary applications or supporting evidence that we receive after the six month deadline will be rejected and no bursary or additional allowances, including Practice Placement Expenses, Childcare Allowance and Disabled Students Allowance, will be awarded.
Issue 17 - October 2015 4
Operational update for Social Work Bursaries
Social Work Bursary application forms for the academic year 2015/16 can be found on our website at www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/students/986.aspx.
The capping process is progressing well and we currently have 51 university lists of nominated students still to process.
The bursary application window deadline for Autumn term starters is 30 November 2015.
The bursary application window deadline for January term starters is 14 February 2016.
The tables below outline our current position.
Total applications expected 3899
Total applications approved (subject to capping data from universities/awaiting confirmation of enrolment)
3035
Total applications in process 113
Postgraduate students
Total applications expected 5562
Total applications approved (subject to capping data from universities/awaiting confirmation of enrolment)
5069
Total applications in process 61
Undergraduate students
Issue 17 - October 2015 5
ESG update
All of the 2015/16 ESG packs have been issued this week. We will shortly be reconciling costs for the 2014/15 academic year and will be requesting fully completed ESG10 forms for 2014/15 to carry out this reconciliation exercise.
If you have any queries please contact us [email protected] or on 01253 208888.
We are currently in the process of drafting a Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) practitioners’ guide.
This booklet will contain guidance about the administration of DSA and set out the framework for new and continuing students applying for DSA in 2015/16.
Disabled Student Allowance guide for practitioners
Reconfirmation of NHS Bursary students’ attendance
We emailed you earlier this year to inform you of a joint exercise we will be working on with Health Education North West, which involves you reconfirming the attendance of all your new and continuing NHS funded students. It will become an annual exercise that replaces the current twice yearly exercises carried out by Health Education England.
As explained, the process will commence on 26 October, when you will be sent a spreadsheet, very similar to the Confirmation of Student Attendance (COSA) form, to complete for all students in attendance on an NHS commissioned programme on 1 November 2015.
This work is important and will ensure that NHS Bursaries are being paid out correctly tostudents on NHS commissioned and medical/dental programmes.
Your support is crucial to the success of this exercise and we thank you in advance for your continued support.
If you have not received the email about this, please contact us at [email protected] and we will be happy to send you the information and ensure we have your contact details on our database.
Issue 17 - October 2015 6
Childcare Allowance reconciliation
The reconciliation of Childcare Allowance payments for NHS Bursary students commenced in September 2014. The project was launched as one of the Pacific Programme initiatives (part of the NHS Business Services Authority’s cost saving project) where projected savings of £3 - £5 million were identified. Childcare Allowance reconciliation is performed on a quarterly basis for all NHS Bursary students in receipt of the Childcare Allowance.
Since the start of the reconciliation process to 15 September 2015, we have identified a total overpayment value of £2,150,610.00.
• £700,987 was identified between October 2014 and March 2015• £1,091,839 was identified between April 2015 and June 2015• £357,784 was identified from July 2015 to date (this period is still in progress)
The latest forecast position shows total savings of around £6m for the NHS Bursary Scheme.
Issue 17 - October 2015 7
Special Interest Groups (SIG)
We are proposing to streamline the invoicing process for universities to receive the payment of 2015-16 tuition fees from Student Services.
Currently you send one invoice per student. We would like to offer a facility for you to send one invoice for a list of “pre approved” students.
On 6 November we will issue a sample list of medical and dental students who may be eligible for tuition fees. This will be provided to allow you to cross check, code and validate the information we hold. Please do not take any action to invoice from this list.
On 27 November, we will issue a revised list of medical and dental students in payment as at 26 November. You must check each student is in attendance on 1 December and then send one referenced invoice dated no sooner than 1 December 2015 and attach your list to our accounts payable team at the email or postal address below. This will avoid you having to type each student’s name and reference number. This process will be repeated monthly to allow for students who are late submitting and completing their application.
Initial feedback from the Medical and Dental Special interest group was positive that this would be much easier to administer and control.
If you require further information, a copy of the presentation and would like to provide an email contact for the process, please contact [email protected].
Since the last Bursary News we have received requests to host a Social Work Bursary (SWB) SIG and a Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) SIG.
These SIGs are currently being planned and we will contact you soon with more information.
The aim of a SIG is to focus on specific areas of the NHS Bursary or Social Work Bursary. Its structure is tailored to meet the group’s needs and we will work with group members to develop the agenda for the day.
If you would like to join either the SWB or DSA SIG or if you have ideas for other SIGs, please email [email protected].
Tuition Fee proposal
Postal Invoices to:
Accounts Payable NHSBSAStella HouseGoldcrest WayNewburn RiversideNewcastle Upon TyneNE15 8NY
Electronic Invoices to: [email protected]
Issue 17 - October 2015 8
Regional stakeholder events
Following the popularity and positive feedback from our national Student Services #StakeholderEvent, we would like to start holding regional events too.
We are running a pilot event in conjunction with Health Education Wessex in Otterbourne on Friday 11 December 2015.
The feedback from this event will determine whether we roll them out further. If it’s successful, we will be looking to hold an annual event in each region. The agenda and format of the events will be agreed jointly to ensure attendees receive the maximum benefits out of the day.
We’re confident that these events will prove successful and look forward to working more collaboratively with you.
You can follow all our events on Twitter with #StakeholderEvent.
For more information or to sign up, please contact [email protected].
Issue 17 - October 2015 9
Online guidance videos
Free bursary booklets for 2016/17
We’re currently seeking feedback from students on what type of bursary guidance they would like from online videos and how these might look. Once we have this feedback, we’ll be working on producing the first set of videos for NHS and social work students with a view to launching them next year.
If there are any guidance videos that you, as a university/college, would like to see added to the Stakeholder Guidance section of our website, please let us know by emailing [email protected] and we’ll do our best to produce these.
We have a variety of online guidance booklets available for your students to download from our website. Two of these (Your guide to Social Work Bursaries and Your guide to NHS Student Bursaries) are also available in hard copy free of charge, when ordered by a university or college.
The booklets contain an overview of what your students should know before, during and after they apply for either a Social Work Bursary or an NHS Bursary.
To order free copies for your students, please email [email protected] with which one you would like, how many, your full delivery address and a contact name and number for the delivery.
Issue 17 - October 2015 10
Thank you to everyone who has emailed to place an order for our NHS Bursary 2016/17 application window deadline posters. You should have your printed posters now.
The posters are also available for you to download at any time from the Stakeholder Toolkit area of our website. Due to the size of the text on them, we recommend that you print them A3.
We have now updated the application window deadline tables for 2016 on our website for New Students and Continuing Students.
And don’t forget, you can order free printed copies of the posters any time by emailing us at [email protected].
In our last edition of Bursary News, we told you about the importance of your NHS Bursary students sending in their evidence with a student coversheet.
When NHS Bursary students apply through the Bursary Online Support System (BOSS), a unique barcode is automatically created for each student in the form of a student coversheet. From then on this coversheet is available to the student in the ‘Documents’ section of their BOSS account. All students should print their student coversheet and attach it to anything they post to us.
Almost £20,000 for the last financial year was spent on staff time identifying and printing coversheets for the students who did not send us one, otherwise the evidence we received couldn’t have been scanned into their BOSS account.
Please help us save public money and stay efficient by reminding your students to include their student coversheets.
Print and display our new student coversheet reminder poster, which is available for you to download anytime from the Stakeholder Toolkit area of our website. We recommend that you print the poster on A3 paper.
Application Window deadline posters for 2016/17
Help us to save the taxpayer’s money!
Issue 17 - October 2015 11
Sending and returning evidence
Successful fraud investigation case studies
• An NHS Student Bursary recipient was investigated by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. The student appeared before Cambridge Crown Court at the end of August 2015 and, in light of the evidence collated, pleaded guilty to all allegations of fraud. Staff from NHS Student Bursaries provided detailed witness statements and evidence which assisted greatly in the investigation. The subject was sentenced to 12 months (suspended for 24 months) and ordered to pay £1500 compensation.
• An investigation into Housing Benefit offences by Royal Borough of Greenwich resulted in NHS Student Bursaries providing a statement and exhibits. The subject, an NHS Student Bursary student, attended court and at the first hearing pleaded guilty to all charges. The subject was removed from the NHS funded programme and permanently excluded from the university after a Student Fitness to Practice Panel on 10 September.
• Please help to protect the public purse by reporting any suspicions of bursary fraud You’ll find the relevant contact details at the end of this newsletter.
Using tracked mail through Royal Mail is more efficient for students and safeguards any documents lost in the post, as they can be traced by both the student and NHS Student Bursaries.
We strongly advise all students to use either signed for or Special Delivery tracked mail when sending evidence to NHS Student Bursaries to support their NHS Bursary application. If first or second class post is used and the documents go missing during transit, neither we or Royal Mail will be able to help.
When sending evidence to us, we advise students to write their SBA number before the first line of our address on the front of the envelope and their preferred return address on the back of the envelope. This is to help us identify who the documents belong to, which can sometimes be difficult – especially when the documents belong to a third party such as a parent or partner. This can lead to delays in assessing applications and making bursary payments.
We also strongly advise students to include a pre-paid signed for or Special Delivery self-addressed envelope (SAE) for the return of their documents. Again, if non-tracked mail is used and the documents go missing once they have left our office, neither we or Royal Mail will be able to help.
If no SAE is included, we can only return documents through second class post. In the past year, the cost of returning documents to students who did not provide a SAE was more than £40,000, so providing a tracked mail SAE is not just more efficient for students, it also saves NHS money which can be spent on front line care.
Issue 17 - October 2015 12
We’ve been receiving a high volume of enquiries and form requests from students that have been sent to [email protected] and [email protected]. These email accounts are not for students to use, only universities.
Any emails we receive from students are deleted (not forwarded on).
Students have told us that they have been given these email addresses by their universities. We’re also aware of students who have been told to contact us to request a Bursary (BUR) form or been emailed the form by their university and asked to complete it themselves. Under no circumstances should a student request or complete a BUR form – this must always be done by the university.
Please remember that the HEI Enquiries email account has a 10 working day service level agreement. We currently receive repeat queries after a day or two of receiving no response, which only adds longer to our response time as we are clearing through duplicate emails. If your query is urgent, please use Ask Us or contact our HEI helpline on 0300 330 1372.
We know this is not happening at all universities, but we’d appreciate it if you could remind your students of the correct email address for their enquiries ([email protected]). Due to limited resources, we may have to close the HEI Enquiries email account if it continues to receive such a high volume of emails from students.
Email addresses reminder
Issue 17 - October 2015 13
Closure of Claro Support
Claro Support has recently closed and will no longer be a provider of Non-Medical Help (NMH) support workers.
Students who have been using support workers provided by Claro may continue to use the same Non-Medical Helper if they wish to. The support workers would become independent but continue to provide the support to the student as before.
This will mean there is little or no impact to students as their support from the Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) can continue uninterrupted.
Alternatively, some students may prefer to source another NMH. Where the student wants to use another provider or their existing support worker will not continue as an independent supplier, the process should be as follows:
1. The student sources a new supplier. They may contact their Disability Adviser for help to do this.
2. Once this has been done, the student (or their Disability Adviser if this is more appropriate) should email the DSA team at [email protected] inform us of the change. Please include details of the student’s SBA number, the new suppliers name, the new suppliers contact details and their hourly rates.
3. If applicable, we will send a revised entitlement letter to the student.
Any new students applying for DSA would be assessed in the usual way.
Issue 17 - October 2015 14
If you have a query and can’t find the answer on Ask Us, our new online
self-help enquiry system, you can call our advisors on:
NHS Student Bursaries
Social Work Bursaries
Your dedicated helplines
0300 330 1342
0300 330 1372
Reporting concerns of fraud
Do you have any suspicions of bursary fraud happening in your university?
Suspicions can be reported in confidence to trained personnel through the NHS Protect Fraud Corruption Reporting Line (FCRL).
Telephone: 0800 028 40 60(Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm)
Email: [email protected](anytime)
Online: www.reportnhsfraud.nhs.uk
(anytime)