Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 12 January 2023 to Question 117444 on Medicine: Education, for what reason his Department does not monitor the number of medical students currently training in the UK.

The Department monitors a number of points across the medical training pipeline for England. This includes, the numbers of applicants, acceptances and entrants. The Department also monitors those entering foundation training in the National Health Service following completion of medical degrees through statistics drawn from the Electronic Staff Record and published by NHS Digital.

However, there is not a single indicator that shows how many medical students are studying in the United Kingdom across all years and all medical schools at a given point in time. To obtain such information it would require each medical school across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to take on a significant and more detailed reporting burden. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own arrangements for managing their education and training pipelines.

However, the following table shows medical courses applicants, acceptances in England and entrants in the UK from 2011 to 2022.

Source:

University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) end of cycle 2021 and Office for Students Medical Dental Students Survey (2012-2022), Office for Students

Note:

1. The Office for Students (OfS), who report to Parliament through the Department of Education, publishes the number of entrants to undergraduate medical courses for the UK on an annual basis.
2. 2022 entrants are based on initial figures and are likely to change.