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) home students and (b) non-home students who graduated from the UK with a primary medical degree from 2010 to 2020 remain working in the NHS.

The Department does not hold the data requested. The Department does though hold data from internal analysis that may give wider context to the question tabled and this is included below.

This analysis shows that of United Kingdom medical school students graduating in approximately 2012 to 2020, 93% of UK domiciled and 78% of non-UK domiciled students had entered the Foundation Programme year 2, as of 2024. Approximately 73% of UK and 55% of non-UK domiciled students had entered core/specialty training by 2024, though this number may rise further with time due to the level of competition to enter specialty medical training.

The following table shows the entrants to UK medical school from 2007 to 2015, tracked to registration with the General Medical Council (GMC) and entry to initial stages of NHS training, by domicile at entry to medical school:

Source: the Department of Health and Social Care’s analysis of UK Medical Education Database, Higher Education Statistics Agency, and General Medical Council data, may not match other sources.

Notes:

1. data is currently only available to March 2024;
2. the total entrants to the UK medical schools will include both those on UK Government funded places but also self-funded students at UK medical schools;
3. analysis only tracks doctors into NHS training, some graduates may be in UK medical employment outside the NHS such as research/academia/industry;
4. the numbers in specialty training may rise with time due to the competition in recruitment;
5. data is not held by year of graduation, however students starting medical schools in 2007 to 2015 will correspond approximately to graduates between 2012 to 2020, therefore this is a reasonable proxy for the requested graduate cohorts; and
6. the data represents the vast majority of UK medical students, although it may not match other sources of medical school entrant data as it includes only the four most common medical school courses.

The table above shows the entrants to UK medical schools between 2007 and 2015 by their domicile status at entry to medical school and the proportion who are then seen on the GMC register of doctors, those who have entered year one of foundation medical training, those who have entered year two of foundation medical training, and those who have entered the first level of core/specialty medical training. This analysis tracks medical students’ progress though NHS medical training up to 2024.