XClose

UCL Scholarships and funding

Home
Menu

Allied Health courses

MSc programmes in Speech and Language Sciences, Dietetics, and Orthoptics are funded differently from other programmes.

Student Finance Loans and Grants

After a change in the 18/19 academic year, Allied Health courses are no longer primarily funded by the NHS. Instead, students who study these two-year programmes are eligible to apply for undergraduate funding (a tuition fee loan and maintenance loan) from Student Finance for both years of their course.

**Important: when applying for Student Finance funding you may be asked whether you are in receipt of 'NHS Bursaries', to which you should answer 'No'. NHS Bursaries are used by Medical and Dental students and are different from the NHS Learning Support Fund that Allied Health students can access.

NHS Learning Support Fund

In addition to your main tuition fee loan and maintenance loan from Student Finance, students studying on these programmes can also receive extra financial support from the NHS’s Learning Support Fund.

The Learning Support Fund is an umbrella term for a variety of different types of funding that Allied Health students may be able to access:

  • Training Grants for all eligible students of £5,000 per academic year
  • Specialist Subject Payments (Orthoptics students only) of £1,000 per academic year
  • Parental Support of £2,000 for students with at least one dependent child under 15 years, or under 17 years if registered with special educational needs (this used to be called Child Dependants Allowance)
  • Reimbursement of excess costs incurred on practice placement for travel and temporary accommodation costs (Travel and Dual Accommodation Expenses)
  • Funding for students experiencing financial hardship (Exceptional Support Fund)

*Note – to apply for the Exceptional Support Fund you will first have had to exhaust all other sources of financial support, including UCL’s Financial Assistance Fund.

Allied Health students who have children are eligible to receive Parental Support funding from the NHS Learning Support Fund as well as the Childcare Grant and Parents' Learning Allowance from Student Finance.

In order to apply for any element of the Learning Support Fund you will first have to register for a Learning Support Fund account. You can do this on the NHSBSA website.

If you have questions regarding funding for these programmes, please contact one of our Student Funding Advisors via askUCL.