Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will list the assessments his Department has made on the potential impact of the removal of the Resident Labour Market Test in 2020 on trends in the level of doctors.

The Department has not made a specific assessment of the impact of the removal of the Resident Labour Market Test in 2020 on trends in the level of doctors.

The number of applications to foundation and speciality training has increased over recent years, both from people graduating from United Kingdom medical schools, or UK medical graduates, and from graduates of international medical schools, or international medical graduates.

For specialty training, the number of international medical graduates applying for places has significantly increased since 2020. Data from the General Medical Council (GMC) shows that the number of non-UK trained doctors applying for Core Training Year One and Specialty Training Year One places has increased from 5,326 in 2019 to 18,857 in 2024, a 254% increase. Over the same period the number of UK trained applicants increased from 8,836 to 11,319, a 28% increase.

Internationally trained doctors may also be seeking employment outside of medical specialty training posts and GMC data shows that the proportion of doctors taking up or returning to a GMC licence to practice who were trained outside of the UK was 57% in 2019 which has increased to 66% in 2024.

To tackle bottlenecks in medical training pathways, the government introduced The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill to Parliament on 13 January 2026. The bill delivers the Government’s commitment in the 10-Year Health Plan for England, published in July 2025, to prioritise UK medical graduates for foundation training, and to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors who have worked in the NHS for a significant period for specialty training.