Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Whately Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The one simple thing the Government are not going to do is refuse to listen to what the British people said when they voted on 23 June. We will do what they said—it is the right thing to do. However, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the vital role that the around 10,000 EU doctors in the NHS play in this country. I can reassure him that the number of doctors joining the NHS from the EU was higher in the four months following the referendum result than in the same four months the previous year.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

23. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Kent, with its excellent academic institutions and strong life sciences sector, would be an ideal location for a new medical school, and will he support emerging plans to establish one?

[Mr Hunt]

I can absolutely confirm that the garden of England would be an ideal place for a new medical school—alongside many other parts of the country that are actively competing to start medical schools as a result of the expansion in doctor numbers. It is an independent process run by the General Medical Council, and we will await what it says with great interest.