Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of redeploying staff to other parts of country on the ability of medical students to participate in sickle cell specialist practical training.

No specific assessment has been made and there are no plans to do so. The standard of training for health care professionals is the responsibility of the health care independent statutory regulatory bodies such as the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and Health and Care Professions Council, which are independent statutory bodies. These have the general function of promoting high standards of education and co-ordinating all stages of education to ensure that health and care students and newly qualified healthcare professionals are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes essential for professional practice.

The healthcare regulators set the standards expected at undergraduate level and approve courses. In so doing, they play an important role in setting out the knowledge, skills and behaviours that healthcare professionals must be able to demonstrate. The Higher Education Institutes write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet the regulators standards.

Recent improvements have been made to the postgraduate haematology medical curriculum, with understanding sickle cell disease and thalassemia now described in the curriculum as core competencies.

Additional training is also available for medical trainees across England to receive specialist training to treat people with sickle cell disease. This includes an e-learning programme delivered by Health Education England which has specific courses such as the NHS Screening Programme and includes the Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia Screening Programme.