Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support the recruitment of doctors.

We are taking steps to boost the recruitment of homegrown talent. The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act 2026 implements the Government’s commitment in the 10-Year Health Plan to prioritise United Kingdom medical graduates for foundation training places, and to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors with significant National Health Service experience for specialty training places. The act reduces competition for places and gives homegrown talent a clear path to become the next generation of NHS doctors.

The new resident doctors’ deal will see significant expansion of training places by up to 4,500 over the next three years, including 1,000 next year, 250 of which will be starting in February. This expansion combined with the impact of the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act is expected to bring competition ratios down and tackle bottlenecks almost immediately.