Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of (a) disabled and (b) non-disabled postgraduate medics entered medical training in the latest period for which data is available.

Post graduate medical training is initially through the two-year foundation programme, followed by progression to specialist training programmes.

NHS England publishes monthly data on the National Health Service Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) workforce in England. This includes data on the recorded disability status of Foundation year 1 doctors. Further information is avaiable at the following link, in the file ‘NHS HCHS Workforce Statistics, Trusts and core organisations – data tables’:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics

For doctors entering medical specialty training, in the 2024 NHS medical specialty training programme, 285 doctors had a recorded disability, which represents 2.1% of all doctors accepting an offer, while 13,099, or 94.6%, recorded no disability, and for a further 462, or 3.3%, the disability status was not known/not recorded.

Each year NHS England published the disability status of applicants, including a count of those accepting posts, for each individual medical specialty to help future cohorts in their application processes. This information is avaiable at the following link:

https://medical.hee.nhs.uk/medical-training-recruitment/medical-specialty-training/equality-and-diversity