Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the compatibility of the UK Foundation Programme timelines for allocating placements with the commitment that newly qualified staff will be given six weeks to relocate.

The allocation process for the UK Foundation Programme this year was changed to a Preference Informed Allocation method. This new process saw applicants being given a computer-generated rank, and the removal of the requirement to sit the Situational Judgement Test. When confirming the move to the new system last year, Health Education England, now part of NHS England, set out that once implemented it would be kept under constant review to make sure it is working well for applicants.

All 9,702 eligible applicants for the 2024 foundation programme were allocated to a foundation school, with 75% of those applicants getting their first preference. This is an improvement on last year, when 8,655 applicants were placed, and 71% got their first preference. Because of this, new posts must be created, with appropriate experience for foundation doctors, and the correct level of supervision is required. Foundation schools and their local trusts are working hard to ensure that high quality training posts are available for all applicants. The foundation programme aims to give students as much notice as possible on their allocation to a foundation school, which is why allocations occur in early March.