Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many locally employed doctors received training towards a medical speciality in England (1) across all medical specialties, and (2) in anaesthesia, in 2024–25.

Locally employed doctor (LED) is a catch-all term used to refer to doctors employed by a National Health Service trust that are not on one of the nationally negotiated contracts. LEDs do not work in formal or approved training posts and as such are not funded centrally by NHS England for any specialty.

There are some individual NHS trusts that support LEDs through alternative training pathways, mainly in core training in medicine, anaesthetics and surgery. Data on this would only be available at trust level and is not collected or held centrally.

NHS England has published the LED Blueprint for Change. This outlines a set of targeted high impact actions for Trusts to use to enhance opportunities for training, skills improvement, career pathways and progression to support professional development for LEDs. It has been shaped by LEDs and other key stakeholders including the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, General Medical Council, NHS Employers and British Medical Association.