Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what analysis his Department has conducted or commissioned on the number of doctors likely to retire in the next five years; and what assessment his Department has made of whether sufficient numbers of doctors are in training to maintain current service levels.

The Centre for Workforce Intelligence medical workforce modelling, estimates that around 13,500 consultants and general practitioners (GPs) in England will retire in the five years from 2015 to 2019 inclusive.

Taking account of expected retirements the consultant and GP workforce is projected to grow by around 9,400 posts by 2019, or 2.2% per annum, which is a considerably faster rate of growth than that projected baseline demand for healthcare services (reflecting population growth and the ageing of the population) over this period.