The NHS Learning Support Fund — everyone calls it the LSF — is extra, non-repayable money for students on eligible pre-registration allied health courses at universities in England. It is administered by the NHS Business Services Authority on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.
It is also, judging by how often people get it wrong, the most misunderstood thing in allied health student funding. This guide explains the mechanism: what the fund is made of, what each part is for, who is shut out, and how it interacts with your student loan. The published rates for the current academic year, and the source they come from, are on the Learning Support Fund scheme page.
The one rule that governs everything else
The LSF sits on top of the ordinary student loans system. It does not replace it.
To claim any element of the fund you must be eligible for both a tuition fee loan and a maintenance loan from the Student Loans Company, and you will be asked to produce your student loan award notification as evidence. If you are not taking student finance — for any reason, including choosing not to — you cannot claim the LSF either.
This is why the fund is best thought of as a top-up rather than as a bursary in the older sense. Wales and Northern Ireland run something much closer to a traditional bursary, where the health department pays your fees outright; England does not. Our devolved nations guide sets those systems side by side.
What the fund is made of
The LSF is not one payment. It is a set of separate elements with separate rules, and you claim the ones that apply to you.
The training grant. The main element, paid to eligible students on approved pre-registration courses. It is not income assessed, so household income does not affect it, and it does not need repaying. It is paid pro rata where your course does not run for a full academic year.
The specialist subject payment. An additional payment, on top of the training grant, for students on designated shortage subjects. This is the element most people have never heard of, and it is worth checking against your specific profession rather than assuming — which subjects are designated changes with workforce priorities. Several allied health professions qualify and several do not.
Parental support. For students with parental responsibility for a dependent child below a stated age. It is not income assessed.
Travel and dual accommodation expenses, universally shortened to TDAE. This is a reimbursement, not a grant: you claim back the excess travel costs of getting to a practice placement, and the cost of temporary accommodation where you have to keep a second address to attend one. “Excess” means the difference between what the placement costs you and what your normal journey to university costs — which is why keeping receipts and a record of journeys from day one matters more than any other administrative habit on this list.
The exceptional support fund. Income assessed, and for unexpected, exceptional hardship rather than ordinary shortfalls. It is capped, and it is discretionary.
Who cannot claim it
The exclusions are where the surprises are, and several of them catch people who assumed that “allied health student in England” was the whole test.
- Degree apprentices. If your employer pays you a wage or salary while you train, you are outside the scheme entirely. That is the trade: no tuition to fund and a salary from day one, but no LSF. See apprenticeship funding.
- Anyone receiving NHS salary support during any part of the course, for the same reason.
- The arts therapies. Art therapy, dramatherapy and music therapy courses are not on the eligible course list. Since those professions are entered only through a postgraduate qualification, this is a significant gap — covered further in our guide to the small allied health professions.
- Osteopathy, which is regulated separately and is not on the eligible list.
- Post-registration and CPD courses, foundation years, and some sub-degree paramedic routes.
If your course is not on the eligible list, the exclusion is absolute. Check before you build a budget on it.
The postgraduate trap, and why it is good news
Here is the point that catches nearly every career changer.
If you take a designated pre-registration postgraduate healthcare course in England — an MSc or PGDip that leads to registration — you are funded through the undergraduate student finance system, not the Postgraduate Master’s Loan. That means a tuition fee loan and a maintenance loan at undergraduate rates, even though your award is a master’s.
People discover this late and panic, because the postgraduate loan is a single sum and they have budgeted around it. In fact the undergraduate route is usually the better deal here: it gives you a fee loan and a maintenance loan, and — because the LSF requires eligibility for both — it is what makes you eligible for the Learning Support Fund at all. Postgraduate Master’s Loan students cannot claim the LSF.
The two scheme pages set this out with the rules as published: undergraduate-rate finance for pre-registration postgraduates and the Postgraduate Master’s Loan. If you are weighing an undergraduate degree against a pre-registration master’s, our route comparison guide puts the funding difference alongside the other trade-offs.
How to claim, and when
Applications go through the NHS BSA’s LSF service, not through your university and not through Student Finance England. Three practical points:
- Apply for student finance first. You need the award notification before the LSF claim can be assessed, so the sequence matters.
- Claim in each academic year. The training grant is not a one-off award that rolls forward; you claim it for each year of your course.
- Claim TDAE per placement, promptly. There are deadlines after a placement ends, and a missed deadline is simply lost money. Log mileage, public transport fares and accommodation costs as you go — reconstructing a year of placement travel in June is miserable and usually inaccurate.
What to budget on
Treat the training grant and any specialist subject payment as reliable income once you have confirmed your course is eligible: they are not income assessed and not discretionary. Treat TDAE as a reimbursement you will need to float first — you pay, then you claim, and the gap can be weeks. Treat the exceptional support fund as a safety net, not a plan.
Then set the whole thing against the other side of the ledger. What the LSF does not change is that you will still be borrowing for fees and living costs. What it does change is the placement year, when your costs spike and your capacity to work part-time falls.
Where to go next
- The Learning Support Fund scheme page carries the published rates for each element, with the source.
- The funding index compares every scheme across all four UK nations.
- Your profession’s page — for example physiotherapy or diagnostic radiography — links the funding that applies to that profession specifically.
- The NHS pay bands show what the course leads to, which is the other half of any sensible calculation about whether the borrowing is worth it.