Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to increase the number of places for medical students to undertake training in cardiac units.
The content and standard of medical training is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC), which is an independent statutory body. It has the general function of promoting high standards of education and to ensure that medical students and newly qualified doctors are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes essential for professional practice.
Medical schools design curricula for undergraduate medical education, which includes the type of placements students may undertake during the course. In doing so they must ensure that teaching meets the standards of the GMC in order to both gain and maintain GMC recognition of their course.