Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people from Gaza have travelled to the UK to take part in the International Surgical Training Programme since the start of 2018.

The Medical Training Initiative (MTI), within which the International Surgical Training Programme (ISTP) operates, enables up to 1,000 international medical and dental graduates per year to enter the United Kingdom to experience training and development in the National Health Service for up to two years before returning to their home country.

Applicants are prioritised if they are from countries on the Department for International Development approved priority list and Lower Income and Lower Middle Income priority countries.

The information is not held by the Department in the format requested. However, the following table shows the total number of successful applicants from the Occupied Palestinian Territories to the MTI between April 2017 and December 2018 by headcount.

Total number of successful applicants from the Occupied Palestinian Territories to the MTI between April 2017 and December 2018 headcount

Source: Academy of Medical Royal Colleges internal management information

Notes:

“-“ indicates a number between one and ten that has been suppressed for confidentiality reasons

The Department has regular discussions with both the National Health Service and higher education institutions on a range of policy initiatives. The ISTP is run by the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has oversight in its role as the organising body behind the MTI, of which the ISTP forms part. As such, any decision allocation of places on the ISTP will necessarily be developed by the institution(s) running the programme in the first instance.

Information on the number of people from the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Gaza that have travelled to the UK to take part in the ISTP since the start of 2018 is not held centrally.