Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to encourage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue a career in medicine.

The Government has set out in its Mandate to Health Education England (HEE) the need to improve access to healthcare education and employment within the health sector for underrepresented groups, which includes those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

HEE’s ‘Widening Participation: It Matters’ strategy is in place to drive widening participation through partnership working. The strategy’s purpose is to ensure that the National Health Service workforce is more representative of the communities it seeks to serve and that personal development and progression is based upon merit, ability and motivation and not social background, nepotism or privilege.

HEE has also been working with the Medical Schools Council, in partnership with the Sutton Trust in extending the Pathways to Medicine Programme and the Social Mobility Foundation in supporting disadvantaged participants interested in a medical career.

The Department has also worked with the Medical Schools Council and other key groups to produce the “Selecting for Excellence” report which looks to highlight areas for Medical Schools to consider and tackle around widening participation in to UK medical schools a copy of which can be access from:

http://www.medschools.ac.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Selecting-for-Excellence-Final-Report.pdf