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 the withdrawal of additional speciality training places for resident doctors in 2026-27 on NHS workforce planning.

On 22 March, the Government made a formal offer to the British Medical Association (BMA) Resident Doctors Committee (RDC) to seek to resolve their dispute. This was the product of joint negotiation with BMA RDC officers. The offer included a package of measures to tackle training bottlenecks, including increasing specialty training places by up to 4,500 over three years.

This offer was rejected by the committee on 25 March, and the BMA RDC immediately called industrial action in England for 7 to 13 April 2026.

An assessment was made by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and senior leaders within NHS England that due to the financial and operational impact of the six day strike action in April, the 1,000 additional roles set to be launched in April could not go ahead as planned.

We will still be introducing the additional 1,000 training posts committed to in the 10-Year Health Plan over the next three years.

The decision not to bring forward the launch of 1,000 additional training places to this April will not reduce the number of doctors working in the National Health Service or its ability to serve patients. The additional posts would have changed the proportion of doctors in formal training pathways or in local employment or non-training roles.