New medical schools to open to train doctors of the future

Five universities will be home to new medical schools offering undergraduate places under plans unveiled today to boost the number of doctors training across England.

The new medical schools are at:

• The University of Sunderland
• Edge Hill University
• Anglia Ruskin University
• University of Lincoln
• Canterbury Christ Church University and University of Kent

We worked with The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) on the bidding process to allocate 1500 training places and select sites for new medical schools across the country that will deliver the training.

Ian Cumming, Chief Executive Health Education England and Chair of the assessment panel said:

This is great news for patients in all these different parts of the country, studies show that doctors tend to stay in the areas where they train so it means more doctors for the region to deliver high-quality care.

The extra training places demonstrate a real commitment to making sure that we have the number of doctors we need for the NHS in the future. This is part of the major expansion of 25% additional medical students. This has allowed both the creation of many new medical schools and an expansion of student numbers in existing medical schools.

The bidding process for allocating these new places has also allowed the expert panel to prioritise new student places to those areas with a relative shortage of doctors overall, or in certain specialties, and also to widen the social profile of new medical students.

Professor Wendy Reid, Director of Education and Quality and Medical Director, Health Education England said:

The 25 per cent increase in places shows there is a real commitment to a sustainable future home-grown medical workforce, making us self-sufficient in the supply of doctors for years to come, giving more young people from diverse backgrounds the chance to become a doctor.

These extra places also give us the opportunity, with partners across health and education, to respond to NHS need, providing doctors in the specialties and places that patients need long into the future.

The five regions chosen to have a new school follows a rigourous bidding process to help train more medical students.

In October 2016 the Health Secretary announced that the number of medical training places available to students each year would be expanded from September 2018. It was announced that the government would fund up to 1500 additional student places through medical schools each year.

Total additional medical places allocated by HEFCE and HEE