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 increase the number of medical school places.

This NHS Long Term Workforce Plan recently published by NHS England sets out an aim to double the number of medical school places in England to 15,000 places a year by 2031/32, and to work towards this expansion by increasing places by a third, to 10,000 a year, by 2028/29.

This will build on the recent increase in number of medical school places the Government has funded. There are now an additional 1,500 medical school places per year for domestic students in England – a 25% increase, taking the total number of medical school places in England to 7,500 each year. This expansion was completed in September 2020 and delivered five new medical schools in England.