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Nursing and midwifery training places in Northern Ireland are to be maintained at the record level they reached last year.

Health Minister Robin Swann has announced there will be more than 1,300 pre-registration places available this year at Northern Ireland universities.

The training places are shared across midwifery and the four fields of nursing practice.

Those include adult, children, mental health and learning disability nursing.

Nursing and midwifery account for more than a third (35%) of the health workforce in Northern Ireland.

Mr Swann said a staffing strategy for the health service sets out a "clear need" for the workforce to be "both of sufficient size to deliver safe care and also has the best possible combination of skills and expertise".

Some 711 training places have been commissioned from Queen's University Belfast, 427 from Ulster University, and 187 from programmes provided through the Open University.

The minister said progress had been made to increase the availability of training places to address the staffing shortfall that had been experienced in recent years.

Training places were now up 87% on what had been offered in 2015-16, he said.

A report by the National Audit Office last year found that more than 1 in 10 nursing posts were vacant and that the workforce was ageing.

It warned that the health service was facing nursing and midwifery staff shortages before the coronavirus pandemic hit.