Medr/2025/30: Higher education wellbeing and mental health funding 2025/26

Introduction

1. This publication sets out our intentions in 2025/26 to allocate:

• £2,350,000 funding to universities to implement well-being and health strategies (universities only);
• £2,000,000 additional funding for well-being and health support for learners (universities and further education providers in direct receipt of Medr higher education funding);
• Additional £400,000 to support HE staff and student emotional and mental well-being initiatives at a national level; and
• Additional well-being and health funding to support joint further and higher education projects.

2. Medr has a strategic duty to promote equality of opportunity in tertiary education and will introduce a staff and student/learner welfare related condition of registration. The Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Bill: Exploratory Memorandum notes:

‘The initial and ongoing conditions regarding support for and the promotion of student and staff welfare will introduce new regulatory requirements for providers which, it was envisaged, would encompass matters such as mental health, wellbeing and safety of learners and staff at the provider. The Commission will be required to set out and publish requirements which must be met by registered providers regarding their arrangements in respect to the initial and ongoing conditions. In the context of student and staff welfare, it is envisaged that ‘arrangements’ would include policies, procedures and support services for student and staff wellbeing and safety. ‘Wellbeing’ in this context is intended to mean emotional wellbeing and mental health. ‘Safety’ is intended to mean freedom from harms including harassment, misconduct, violence (including sexual violence), and hate crime.’

3. In 2024, Welsh Ministers published their statement of strategic priorities for tertiary education research and innovation which include a priority for Medr to create a common framework for mental health and well-being support across tertiary education.

4. In March 2025, Medr published its Strategic Plan for 2025-30 and in June 2025 its operational plan for 2025-26 financial year.

5. The Strategic Plan includes a founding commitment for Medr to develop a common framework for mental health and well-being by 1 August 2026, affirming equality of opportunity and strengthened by regulatory conditions to support staff and learner welfare.

Higher education emotional and mental well-being and health, including mental policy, update and our expectations arising from them

6. In April 2025, the Welsh Government published its Mental health and wellbeing strategy 2025 to 2035. Medr expects all HE providers to take account of the national mental health and well-being strategy when developing and revising their well-being and health strategies, suicide prevention and self-harm approaches and well-being policies and, where appropriate, include related actions in their 2025/26 implementation plans.

7. In April 2025, the Welsh Government published its Suicide Prevention and Self‑harm Strategy for Wales. Medr encourages all HE providers to participate in, and contribute to, the Suicide Prevention and Self-Harm Community of Practice.

Emotional and mental well-being, and wider equality and intersectionality considerations

8. We expect providers to take account of intersectional impacts on learner and staff emotional and mental well-being. Therefore, providers should take account of how the mental health and well-being funding contributes to the following Welsh Government equality plans:

• Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan;
• LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales;
• Violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence: strategy 2022 to 2026 and its Violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence: blueprint high level action plan;
• Disabled People’s Rights Plan: 2025 to 2035 which is currently under consultation.
  While the Draft Disabled People’s Rights Plan is not yet finalised, we encourage providers to take account of its proposed priorities and principles, where appropriate.

9. HE providers must use the findings and conclusion of the equality impact assessments to inform plans, policies, procedures to demonstrate actions are evidence-based.

Well-being and health funding strategies and implementation plan funding 2025/26 (£2,300,000 universities only)

10. We expect implementation plans in 2025/26 to continue to take a ‘whole university approach’, supporting and addressing the needs of staff and students and taking account of all aspects of university life, including living and working life. Where universities choose to fund well-being and health, including mental health activity and services from non-Medr funding, please include these activities and services and the sources of funding in the plans.

11. In 2025/26 all universities must review their strategic approach to suicide prevention and put in place mitigating action/s in their Suicide Safer action plans.

12. Providers should consider the suicide prevention guidance, uploaded to the HE&FE suicide prevention community of practice Padlet. They should also take into account the implications from the National Review of HE Student Suicides and consider actions that address the recommendations.

13. 2025/26 implementation plans should account for the university’s 2025/26 funding allocations (£2,300,000 strategy funding and £2m additional funding) and any additional resources provided from non-Medr sources and include:

1. well-being and health, including mental health, strategy objectives/intentions being prioritised in 2025/26;
2. activities, services, training, and resources, against the objectives/intentions, including dates by when new or continuing activities, services and resources will be established and/or completed;
3. activities, services, training and resources provided bilingually and/or separately in Welsh;
4. activities, services, training, and resources including learners at franchise/partner organisations,
5. activities, services, training, and resources for postgraduate learners;
6. activities, services, training, and resources for international learners;
7. activities, services, training and resources to secure the well-being and health of staff and learners, including health affected by harassment, hate and sexual misconduct and violence, regardless of identity;
8. activities, services, training and resources provided specifically to, or providing information about supporting, staff and learners with protected characteristics.
9. extend, enhance or subsidise period dignity and personal hygiene products and/or clothes washing services for students;
10. activities, services, training and resources that take account of the Universities UK (UUK) Stepchange: mentally healthy universities self-assessment findings and recommendations;
11. clearly identifiable actions to address gaps, priorities or recommendations identified as a result of the university’s review using the UUK self-assessment tool;
12. activities, services, training and resources that take account of the Universities UK (UUK) Suicide Safer Framework and supporting guidance;
13. confirmation of how progress against the implementation plan will be monitored and measured;
14. an explanation of how a representative range of students, staff and interested parties have been involved in developing the plan;
15. an explanation of how impact assessment findings have informed the objectives/intentions, activities and services to be delivered;
16. an explanation of how the implementation plan’s monitoring and review will be reported to and through university governance structures.

Additional well-being and health funding to support learners 2025/26 (£2m, universities and further education providers in direct receipt of Medr higher education funding)

14. The funding can be used for activities that reflect each institution’s individual priorities, based on its own policies and the identified support needs of its learners, informed by their own data and evidence.

15. Financial support may include:

1. well-being and health, including mental health activities, services, training, and resources for learners;
2. activities, services, training and resources provided bilingually and/or separately in Welsh;
3. activities, services, training, and resources including learners at franchise/partner organisations;
4. activities, services, training, and resources for postgraduate learners;
5. activities, services, training, and resources for international learners;
6. activities, services, training and resources to secure the well-being and health of learners, including health affected by harassment, hate and sexual misconduct and violence, regardless of identity;
7. activities, services, training and resources provided specifically to, or providing information about supporting, learners with protected characteristics.

16. Universities and colleges must ensure that learner support is informed by equality impact assessments.

17. We strongly encourage universities and colleges, working with their Students’ Unions or equivalent body. All learners, including postgraduate and international learners should be considered for support, subject to need.

National higher education project/s

18. In 2025/26, Medr will allocate to higher education an additional £400,000 to support HE staff and learner emotional and mental well-being initiatives at a national level. Medr, will be engaging with the sector to identify which national project/s will be taken forward.

Additional 2025/26 further and higher education funding

19. In 2025/26 the Welsh Government provided Medr with additional funding to support further and higher education providers. It is Medr’s intention to allocate £350,000 to universities’ via formular funding as detailed in paragraphs 10 and 13, and to fund the following national FE and HE projects:

• Continued funding to the national student mental health partnership programme led by Cardiff University and building on pilot work originally funded by HEFCW and Welsh Government. In 2025/26, Medr is providing continuation funding to support the development of a data storage solution, continued rollout of a mental health severity index, exploration and development of information-sharing protocols and an external evaluation of the programme (£950,000).
• Myf.Cymru led by Bangor University to provide Welsh language learner well-being resources and practitioners network for further and higher education (£150,000).  

University and further education providers in direct receipt of Medr higher education funding

Universities

20. The 2025/26 Well-being and health, including mental health, strategy implementation plan funding will be allocated in one payment, on the basis of student headcounts, as set out in Annex A.

21. The 2025/26 additional well-being and health funding to support learners will be allocated in one payment, on the basis of learner headcounts, as set out in Annex B.

22. In 2025/26 we will allocate both Annex A and Annex B funding in one tranche payment in December 2025 subject to:

• submission of 2025/26 Well-being and health, including mental health, implementation plans (see template provided at Annex C and Appendix C1). The submission date for this reporting is 1 December 2025.

23. We expect universities to manage and spend in full in-year their 2025/26 allocations.

24. We will reclaim any uncommitted underspend at the end of 2025/26, unless there are exceptional circumstances, and we will reclaim/withhold future funding where there is unsatisfactory or limited reporting against our monitoring requirements.

Further education providers in direct receipt of Medr higher education funding

25. The 2025/26 additional well-being and health funding to support learners will be allocated in one payment, on the basis of learner headcounts, as set out in Annex B.

26. In 2025/26 we will allocate Annex B funding in one tranche payment in December 2025 subject to:

• Submission of 2025/26 Additional well-being and health funding to support learners implementation plan (see template provided at Annex D). The submission date for this reporting is 1 December 2025.

27. We expect further education providers in direct receipt of Medr higher education funding to manage and spend in full in-year their 2025/26 allocations.

28. We will reclaim any uncommitted underspend at the end of 2025/26, unless there are exceptional circumstances, and we will reclaim/withhold future funding where there is unsatisfactory or limited reporting against our monitoring requirements.

University and further education providers in direct receipt of Medr higher education funding

29. Well-being and health funding monitoring templates will be circulated in November 2025.

Timetable

30. Table 1 below sets out the university and Further Education providers in direct receipt of Medr Higher Education funding submission and reporting deadlines.

Table 1

Submission and reporting requirements	Submission date
Guidance issued	November 2025
Deadline for submission of 2025/26 Well-being and health, including mental health, implementation plan	01 December 2025
Deadline for submission of 2025/26 additional well-being and health funding to support learners implementation plan	01 December 2025
One-off payment	December 2025
Submission of final monitoring report	01 July 2026

Further information / responses to

31. For further information contact Ryan Stokes ([email protected]).

32. Responses to be submitted to [email protected].

Assessing the impact of our policies

33. We have updated our ongoing impact assessment to take account of equality, diversity and inclusion. We also considered the impact of policies on the Welsh language, and Welsh language provision within the tertiary sector in Wales and potential impacts on the goals set out in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

34. Our impact assessment findings include:

• identifying likely positive impacts on the following protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. No negative impacts were identified.
• confirming that the funding supports five of the seven well-being goals and takes account of the five ways of working of the Well-being of Future Generations Act.
• noting that the funding and monitoring seeks to have a positive impact on the Welsh Language.