Medical Students

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I respect the views of the noble Lord but I have looked very carefully at the number of applications coming into medical schools in 2016 compared with the previous year. In 2016, there were 20,100 applications for all medical schools, including in Scotland. The previous year the figure was 20,390, so there is no firm evidence to support the view that the noble Lord expresses. There were some rumours that St George’s was having trouble filling its places. I have investigated that and understand that it was a result not of any lack of demand but of the fact that it wanted to wait until A-level results had come through so that it could choose the best candidates based on those results. So I do not think there is any evidence to substantiate the noble Lord’s point.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, one of the objectives in Health Education England’s mandate is to reduce our dependency on temporary staff. However, the National Audit Office tells us that we are short of 50,000 clinicians, and that HEE is failing to be sufficiently proactive in addressing the,

“variations in workforce pressures in different parts of the country”.

Is the noble Lord’s department monitoring how well HEE is responding to these challenges?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, predicting the future requirement for doctors is extremely difficult. It is more a matter of prophesy than science. The fact that we are now going to fund an extra 1,500 doctor places a year, which is a 25% increase, should make a huge difference.