Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many medical students started university in each of the past five years.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) publish the number of United Kingdom-wide acceptances to medicine and dentistry jointly, but not to English providers for medicine alone. The latest number for UK medicine and dentistry acceptances, as of 15 days post A-Level results day, is 13,730 acceptances for 2025, which is 5% higher than the same point last year, namely 13,030 acceptances, and 15% higher than pre-pandemic, namely 11,960 acceptances in 2019.

The Office for Students publishes the number of entrants to medical degrees in England each year. Numbers for 2020 and 2021 are high because of the temporary lifting of the cap on medical school places in England during the COVID-19 pandemic. The following table shows the number of entrants to medicine courses in England, each year from 2019 to 2024:

Source: The Office for Students’ Medical and Dental Students Survey, from 2019 to 2024.

Notes:

1. 2024 entrants are based on initial figures and may change.
2. Given the evidence from UCAS data above, we would expect entrant numbers to be in the region of 5% higher in 2025 when numbers are known.