Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the announcement on 22 September 2022 that the General Medical Council will extend the temporary emergency registration scheme, what steps he is taking to ensure data on the number of working doctors (a) remains accurate and (b) does not include doctors who re-registered during the pandemic but are now no longer practising.

The Department does not collect or hold data on the number of practising doctors in the United Kingdom.

The General Medical Council is an independent healthcare regulatory body not subject to Government oversight. As such, it is responsible for the maintenance of its registers and associated data collection. As part of maintaining the temporary emergency register, the General Medical Council wrote to all doctors on the register to confirm they wished to maintain their temporary registration.