Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that medical students remain in the (a) UK and (b) medical profession after graduation.

We are committed to listening to the concerns of resident doctors, and to enhancing and improving their working lives.

We are undertaking a range of work to tackle the issues that resident doctors are facing, including improving working conditions and reforming the current system of rotations and placements, working in partnership with the British Medical Association and other partners, as agreed as part of the pay deal last year.

NHS England’s Enhancing Resident Doctors Working Lives programme continues to implement a number of measures to support resident doctors, encouraging them to stay in training and the National Health Service. This includes measures such as less than full time training options, to allow trainees to continue to work in the service and progress with their training on a reduced working pattern, where this benefits their personal circumstances.