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.

The Government has committed to funding an extra 1,500 undergraduate medical school places per year at English universities by 2020/21 - a 25% increase, taking the total number of medical school training places in England to 7,500 each year by 2020/21. Five new medical schools will open to help deliver the expansion in Edge Hill, Sunderland, Chelmsford, Lincoln and Canterbury by September 2020.

The final NHS People Plan will be released in 2020 and will set out how the National Health Service will recruit and retain a well-skilled workforce. NHS England and NHS Improvement are working closely with Health Education England to provide a sustainable pipeline of undergraduate medical students as a part of the final NHS People Plan.