Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a system that requires newly qualified doctors to work for the NHS for a specified number of years to (a) increase retention levels and (b) reducing the cost to the public purse of training doctors who leave to work overseas; and if he will make a statement.

There are currently no plans to introduce a requirement for newly qualified doctors to begin working in the National Health Service once they have completed their training.

The vast majority of doctors do go on to work in the National Health Service after completing their Foundation Programme training. Analysis by the General Medical Council shows that 92.5% of doctors are present in specialty or general practitioner training or work as a doctor in the United Kingdom within three years after completing the Foundation Programme.