Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average cost to the public purse is of training one medical student; and how many qualified doctors applied for a certificate of good standing in each of the last 10 years.

The Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the University of Kent estimates within their report ‘Unit Costs of Health and Social Care 2014’, published March 2014, that the average cost in 2014/15 of training to become a general practitioner is £485,390 with the consultant training cost being £726,551. These figures reflect the pre-registration costs of tuition, living expenses/lost production and clinical placements and the post-graduate costs of tuition and replacement costs not the average cost to the taxpayer.

The Department does not keep information centrally on how many doctors applied for a certificate of good standing in each of the last 10 years.