UK Government faces criticism for medical student number cap

The government has faced criticism for sticking to a cap on medical and dentistry places despite staff shortages.

This comes after a report last month found that persistent understaffing in the NHS is creating a serious risk to patient safety.

James Cleverly, England’s Education Secretary, said that it’s impossible to just “flick a switch” to increase the capacity to train more doctors.

In England, there are 7,500 places for medical degrees in the 2022-23 academic year. The cap had been lifted in 2020 and 2021, leading to more than 10,000 students being accepted, but it has been reinstated in England this year.

The cap exists because medical degrees are heavily subsidised by the government and to ensure that every student has appropriate access to placements and training.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Cleverly said that the nature of highly technical courses such as medicine means that expanding the number of places required more than simply raising the cap.

He said: “To increase those numbers you would also need to increase the capacity in training institutions, both in universities and in hospitals.

“It is not something you can just flick a switch and significantly increase the capacity to train.

“The increases have got to be funded, they are technical and expensive courses and we need to understand the balance of requirements between these courses and other courses that the government is supporting financially.”

The cross-party Health and Social Care Committee said health and social care services in England face “the greatest workforce crisis in their history” and the government has no credible strategy to make the situation better.

According to projections, an extra 475,000 jobs will be needed in health and an extra 490,000 jobs in social care by the early part of the next decade.

Mr Cleverly said that the government was increasing recruitment in response to this news.

He said: “The NHS has always relied significantly on medical professionals from overseas, and I doubt that that will change any time in my lifetime.

“We are recruiting more doctors and more nurses, we are training more homegrown medical talent. That is right.

“We are seeing those medical professional numbers go up, but, as I say, the nature of those incredibly highly technical vocational medical courses makes them different to other courses.”

Earlier this month, it was revealed that nine oversubscribed Russell Group universities had offered students incentives worth almost £9 million to defer their places, and that there was particular interest in incentivising deferral for medicine and dentistry because of the cap.