Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of targeted oncology training places announced in the National Cancer Plan for areas with higher vacancy rates on the expansion of the clinical academic workforce.

The recently published National Cancer Plan sets out that the National Health Service will use training places more directly as a lever to support improvements in operational performance. This includes prioritising training places in trusts, including in rural and coastal areas, where vacancy rates are higher and performance is lower.

The Department and NHS England will work with the royal colleges to encourage resident doctors and internal medicine trainees to specialise in clinical and medical oncology, where possible, to address vacancy and performance pressures.

In 2025, there were 157% more medical oncology training places than in 2015. Medical oncologists are a core component of the clinical academic workforce, contributing both to frontline patient care and to the development and delivery of cancer research.