Health secretary Andy Burnham announced yesterday the NHS would receive £25 million to create the places, which will include clinical support roles such as dental nurses and pharmacy support workers, and non-clinical roles such as IT support, estates and facilities management and catering.
Meeting apprentices at Aintree Hospital in Liverpool, Burnham said: "We are totally committed to being able to provide apprenticeship opportunities for young people.
"Apprenticeships are an excellent way of giving young people the chance to learn life changing skills and offer a genuine opportunity to train clinical staff.
"In these tough economic times, we must do all we can to provide high-quality routes into jobs so that we can ensure we have a highly-skilled, highly-motivated and loyal NHS workforce for future generations."
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis added: "The funding to create 5,000 new NHS apprenticeships is the right move at the right time.
"The public sector has an important role to play in supporting people through the recession. Young people in particular are being hit hard and are struggling to get even near the jobs ladder."
Burnham also announced the creation of a National Apprenticeship Advisory Committee which will be chaired by Guys' and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Ron Kerr to drive progress and promote recruitment for and retention of apprenticeships in the NHS
The NHS currently has 1,500 apprentices.
NHS to create 5,000 new apprenticeships by March 2010
The NHS is to treble the number of its apprentices by creating 5,000 new places by March 2010 as part of the Government's plan to create 21,000 apprenticeships across the public sector.
