Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has been made of NHS Trusts willingness and financial ability to take on new specialty medical training posts for the August 2026 recruitment round.

As the first step in delivering the expansion of specialty training posts by up to 4,500 in England over the next three years, more than 350 additional places were made available in August, with the aim of them starting in February 2027. To deliver this, and the remaining additional places due for 2027, the Government asked trusts to submit expressions of interest based on identified service needs, training capacity and training quality. As part of this process, it is expected that trusts assess their capacity and resources to deliver these posts, making better use of existing temporary staffing expenditure, for example on locum, bank and agency spend to convert these into substantive training posts.