Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policies of the findings on recruitment of the Royal College of Physicians annual census Focus on physicians: 2017–18 census (UK consultants and higher specialty trainees).

The Royal College of Physicians’ report ‘Focus on physicians: census of consultant physicians and higher specialty trainees 2017-18’ is a valuable source of information for medical workforce planning in England. The NHS Long Term Plan and the subsequent interim NHS People Plan set out the action we will take now and over the long term to meet the challenges of supply, reform, culture and leadership. They were developed on the basis of the advice and experience of stakeholders including the Royal College of Physicians. Since the report was published in June 2018 action has been taken to address some of the findings of the report.

The Government has already committed to funding for universities to offer an extra 1,500 undergraduate medical school places opening five new medical schools across England in the process. The interim NHS People Plan sets out that we will review what further expansion in undergraduate medical places will be needed, in light of future plans made locally by sustainability and transformation partnerships and integrated care systems.

The NHS Long Term Plan included the commitment to exploring the potential to expand the Medical Training Initiative so that more medical trainees from developed and developing countries can spend time working and learning in the National Health Service. The Plan also commits to a national programme board, which will be established to address geographic and specialty shortages in doctors, including developing new staffing models for rural and coastal hospitals and planning for the distribution of the increased medical graduates entering the NHS from 2022/23.