Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure there are sufficient numbers of trained radiologists to deliver interventional oncology therapies.

As of October 2022, there were 3,608 full-time equivalent (FTE) consultants in the clinical radiology specialty in the National Health Service in England. This is an increase of 415 (13%) since 2019.

As of October 2022, there were 1,588 FTE doctors in training in the clinical radiology specialty in the NHS in England. This is an increase of 252 (18.9%) since 2019.

The Government has funded an additional 20 places for Specialty Training year 6 for Interventional Radiologists in 2021/22 and 2022/23, and Health Education England has started training into Interventional Radiology at Specialty Training year 1.

The Government has funded 1,500 (25%) more medical school places each year for domestic students in England since 2020.

Increasing the overall radiology workforce will increase the pool of radiologists who can train to deliver interventional oncology therapies.