Health Education England statement on National Training Survey

The national training survey (NTS) the largest annual survey of doctors in the UK has been published by the General Medical Council (GMC) today. The survey sets out trainees views on their training and working environments and trainers share their perspectives as a clinical and/or educational supervisor.

Commenting on the survey Professor Wendy Reid, Executive Medical Director and Director of Education and Quality said:

We need to pay tribute to the doctors in training and their trainers who have responded magnificently, continuing to provide high quality care for patients while their own training programmes have been disrupted during what have been unprecedented times for everyone in the NHS and wider society.

‘It’s good to see that the survey confirms that many of the recommendations from our NHS Staff and Learners Mental Wellbeing Commission have been implemented during the past few months, providing doctors in training with safe spaces and rest facilities for example, providing a Samaritans-style help line and working with partners on their overall health and well-being. 

Our own survey for Interim Foundation Year 1 Doctors (FiY1s), conducted in June, also confirmed that these doctors felt well supported and had high quality placements whilst supporting the NHS pandemic effort. 

As we continue to deal with the pandemic, we are committed to ensuring that we provide supportive supervision for doctors in training and that we continue to use our quality framework to assess training and training environments so that our trainees are able to provide vital high quality services while we work to keep them safe and well as they care for others."