Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of practising doctors in the UK in each year since May 2010.

No estimate has been made of the number of practising doctors in the United Kingdom in each year since May 2010.

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the regulatory body for doctors and holds a register of all doctors registered to practise in the UK. Doctors must be registered with the GMC to work as a doctor in any healthcare setting, not just the National Health Service.

The attached table taken from the annual NHS workforce census, published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), shows the total number of doctors (including general practitioners) working in the NHS in England at 30 September each year. The latest available statistics are for 2013 and were published on 25 March 2014. The next census will be published by the HSCIC on 25 March 2015.

The HSCIC also publishes provisional monthly NHS hospital and community health service (HCHS) workforce statistics for directly employed staff (not general practitioners) in the NHS in England. The latest data for October 2014 shows there are 104,920 hospital doctors working in the NHS in England, a 10% increase since May 2010.

The provision of health services in the UK is a devolved issue. Information on the number of practicing doctors in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland may be available online at the following addresses:

Wales: wales.gov.uk/topics/health/?lang=en

Scotland: www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health

Northern Ireland: www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/index.htm