Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of trainee doctors accelerating or pausing their courses in order to assist with frontline support in response to the covid-19 outbreak.

The General Medical Council (GMC) already has powers to register professionals in an emergency.

We are working closely with all the healthcare professional bodies to ensure they have plans in place to identify, contact and register key groups of staff which could enable them to assist with frontline support in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

As part of its planning and preparation, the General Medical Council (GMC) is preparing to contact to those doctors with a United Kingdom address, who are fully qualified and experienced, of good standing, and who have given up their registration or licence to practise within the last three years, outlining the process they would need to follow and informing them of what they should do if they want to opt out.

In all around 15,000 doctors will be contacted.