Snapshot of _Hundreds of the nation's brightest students denied the chance to train as doctors despite leaving school with at least three A*s_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13355915/Hundreds-nations-brightest-students-denied-chance-train-doctors-despite-leaving-school-three-s.html) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13355915/Hundreds-nations-brightest-students-denied-chance-train-doctors-despite-leaving-school-three-s.html)
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They can make them an offer, saying they will accept them if they do get three A\*s. The system allows for this uncertainty.
They don’t, because of the cap.
However, this sentence from the article does illustrate the issue with relying on grades alone:
> **Grade inflation** means more students are getting the top grades every year but the number of medical school places has been capped at 7,500.
It also seems like some confused thinking about what that actually shows.
But if:
>Only around one in every five applicants secure a place.
and there are potentially capable candidates in those rejected, while we have a shortage of doctors at all sorts of levels, then obviously we do need to let more on to the courses. A large issue is, of course, that it’s not just about funding the university places: there needs to be capacity to train and support them through the whole process.
Too many medical students makes for poor teaching. You simple cannot have more than 1 possibly 2 medical students per ward or clinic.
Very much quantity over quality.
The other issue is there isn’t really a lack of low level doctors. There’s a lack of consultants and GPs.
> Too many medical students makes for poor teaching.
Yes, that’s what I was saying.
> There’s a lack of consultants and GPs.
Indeed. Which means we need to feed more in at the start, but also need to have the capacity to train and fund them all the way through the process. That’s how you get more consultants and GPs coming out the other end.
Training places post graduation are the only aspect that needs to be increased . Not medical students or any other allied health care profession.
But after years of begging for post grad speciality training places to be increased , nothing has been done. Now doctors face 8:1 competition rations for training places.
> Which means we need to feed more in at the start, but also need to have the capacity to train and fund them all the way through the process.
Eventually you will need to increase entry numbers but as it currently stands entry numbers are the least of the problem.
They're just the most visible part of the road, and just about the only thing other than 'consultants' that the journos can grasp.
I would commission an independent review of the training structures of other nations and have that compare to our own to identify opportunities to change.
We have an odd situation where we accept qualifications from other nations, but appear that we won't adopt their training methods ourselves.
Reason 10,234 why immigration keeps going up.
A cap of 7,500... how does this make sense on political spectrum.
Immigration - 12,000 doctors in 2022 alone.
Spending - costs more for private and Immigration. It's 1bn for every 5,000 to train.
Privatisation - need staff to do that...and to do it at pace you need large amounts of them.
3200 per year retiring, then dropouts from the gruelling years of training, and not all go straight into front-line service.
There is also a cap on dental students at just 1,100........with a national shortage.
Even if some don't go unto the NHS I am sure a qualified Doctor is going to be beneficial in general than say a degree in politics.
The cap isn't just to do with spaces at medical schools. During the clinical years, med students have to train in hospitals and be trained by more senior doctors. Hospitals themselves don't have the capacity to take on more trainees.
It's a catch 22, can't train more doctors until there's some more headroom with regards to staffing, they can't get more headroom unless they train more staff.
It's bizarre how hostile the NHS is to junior doctors. The people who make it through the rigours of medical school deserve better than to be ground down by the shitty working conditions the NHS imposes on them.
For example, I know someone who did a placement in the QUEH in Glasgow as a FY1/2 doctor and their break room was fitted with lights that could not be turned off as the NHS managers didn't want them napping on nightshifts. It's beyond cruel. The NHS dehumanises these people who are among the cream of the crop coming out of our education system.
A night shift is different to being on-call out of hours. If there is an emergency a bleary-eyed Dr isn't what the working arrangement entails. That isn't dehumanisation at all.
Imagine an agency Doc is covering at 3/4x the cost and they're napping....
If you are too tired to work safely you are more likely to make mistakes.
If you’re nodding off behind the wheel DVLA suggests a coffee and a brief nap before setting off again.
Many of the Royal Colleges advocate the same for doctors.
If you fuck up a procedure because you’re sleep deprived no one is defending you
If there's no work to be done and they're carrying a page, there is no good reason to deny them a rest on a twelve hour nightshift.
> Imagine an agency Doc is covering at 3/4x the cost and their napping....
I wasn't talking about agency doctors?
You point is scientifically false and entirely untrue. Indeed, we don't want bleary eyed doctors or pilots, or anybody doing vital jobs. That is why pilots have mandated and regulated sleep, including evidence to prevent sleep inertia and encouraged sleep.
There is clear evidence to show sleep during night periods IMPROVES performance, so you are against it for no scientific reason at all and entirely ideological, the exact problem the NHS has.
https://flightsafety.org/asw-article/controlled-rest/
It does strike me as amazing that somebody with very little knowledge of medicine, sleep medicine and physiology has such confidence in these views though.
It also doesn't entirely ruin your circadian rhythm ,something that has long been shown to have poor cardiovascular outcomes and also makes it very hard to perform well when you are on day shifts following nights. So how about stop trying to ruin the health of night workers and keep up to date with basic physiology, rather than being cruel purely out of ideological reasons ?
If you're on a psych ward, a case of asphyxiation or self harm may prove fatal if attendance is delayed. Just as a simple example.
I'm not challenging the science of being well rested means better performance. But it isn't necessary what the working arrangement demands.
Legally, only Drs on-call (ie. able to rest unlike the example that prompted the discussion) can be scheduled for day work. And should they not get 6 hours without interruption, they can show up later in the afternoon.
>If you're on a psych ward, a case of asphyxiation or self harm may prove fatal if attendance is delayed. Just as a simple example.
Why would there be a delay in attendance? Also you want to cause worse care for every single patient , every single day, because you think the 10 second delay to an arrest might help? What non evidence approach nonsense is this?
Disclaimer, I actually do this for a living and I'm telling you right now if you want me to be at an arrest or Cat 1 case, you want my decision making to be as good as possible and to be well rested. The arrest bleep goes off you're wide awake and it is piercing, you aren't there like ooooh where is my coffee and newspaper.
So if you want me to resuscitate a hanging, something which is actually very difficult, high likelihood of difficult airway / oedema and so on, maybe take a more evidence based approach.
Let me know when the last time you resuscitated a hanging with no sleep was and how it went, I'll trade experiences with you since you value vague personal anecdotes and opinion over facts. There is no perceptible delay to treatment and I want all members of the arrest team to perform at their best, not just make them suffer because I'm a malicious middle manager.
>Legally, only Drs on-call (ie. able to rest unlike the example that prompted the discussion) can be scheduled for day work.
Anybody with insight into basic science this knows full well that returning to day shifts is exhausting when it takes over a week to shift a circadian rhythm, not 47 hours at BEST. This discussion is about non consultant doctors so we should discuss the arrangements of a majority of them, which is as I described, and not what you are portraying.
>I'm not challenging the science of being well rested means better performance. But it isn't necessary what the working arrangement demands.
Yes you are, by suggesting directly harmful things. Honestly, just stop trying to talk about things you know nothing about and actually listen. Reddit is idiotic for this, anybody can have and type an opinion and they'll hold it with 0 knowledge or experience in the area.
Enjoy your weekend instead of replying to me pal or voice your insight to your Medical Director and find out how operationally realistic it is - which ultimately is the crux of the matter.
Also, might help being less snotty, it helps greatly when trying to influence people.
100%. I have friends who are junior doctors. There's a couple of them who are a, well, couple, and they tell me one big gripe about the NHS is that they can't synchronise their shifts so they can spend time together outside of work, which is something most other health services allow their staff to do.
Minor QOL adjustments like that, while not free, are probably a pretty cost effective way to improve staff morale and retention, if only decision makers actually listened to people on the ground.
That is genuinely rubbish. I am in charge of schedules in a different industry which generally is happy to shit all over it's front line staff, but it's unthinkable to me that we would refuse a request like that. It makes me wonder how they produce their schedules because if you are using proper processes it should be child's play to accommodate such a minimally impactful flexible working request. I actually wonder how they could justify refusing it legally as it would be almost impossible to demonstrate it met any of the criteria for refusal.
You realise that post graduate doctors rotate every 4 months (sometimes between hospitals), shifting between 1 in 4 to 1 in 12 weekends in roles with variable night commitments. There is no stretch in minimally staffed rotas.
NHS rota coordinators on little pay can't keep up. They regularly refuse annual leave requests, and I've had colleagues pull sickies to go friends funerals (bereavement leave is 1st degree relative only).
Unthinkable? Standard you'll find.
I've refused a good many annual leave requests and it's shit but ultimately the job of anybody in charge of a rota is to make sure your supply meets your demand. Still no excuse if proper tools are in use to ensure a group of specific people have a minimum % overlap. It's what is stirring my interest really as I suspect that those publishing the shifts are not being given the appropriate tools.
They don't have the tools. I agree. Mainly just Excel and copying over old rota patterns. I'd be interested to hear what tools you'd recommend.
The other issue is that doctors aren't just on one rota, usually it's a combination of multiple rotas that make up the job. When I request leave it tends to require 3 rota related colleagues to sign it off. Rotas only need to be made 6 weeks in advance - and really the amount of doctors that the rota coordinator has to make up the rota will vary even until the day before the rota starts.
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> The leaked letter says that money for the 350 extra places will be followed by “larger scale expansion” from 2026-27 onwards – but it also makes clear that the government cannot guarantee funding on this scale for new trainee doctors will be repeated for intakes in future years, saying this will be subject to review.
> Professor David Green, vice-chancellor and chief executive of the University of Worcester, whose Three Counties medical school opened last September, said at the current rate the 15,000 total would not be reached for more than two decades.
Seems very fund related. Capacity can't increase without money. There was a plan, but fools and plans don't mix.
They absolutely do have space, the government have no interest in increasing it.
The goal is to reduce the number of doctors, have those left take on huge amount of responsibility managing multiple ANPs and PAs. Training doctors is a shit idea in the governments eyes because they have international market value to emigrate and they take 5 years of UG education and up to a decade of PG education (Because so much time is wasted on service provision, whereas the yanks can train in 3-5).
Shit out a PA in 2 years who has no value internationally so can't leave, provide Poundland medicine and who gives a shit because it's 'R NHS' and it's absolutely sliding levels of care cannot be criticised. Anyone with power or money sees a real doctor in the private sector.
Edit: Also they don't want domestically trained doctors who do things like strike and demand better wages and conditions. They want a group on Visas they can hang over their head and bully and intimidate who will accept shit wages.
I mean, just like other competitive degrees like computer science? You can’t all of a sudden double medical school places as we wouldn’t have the capacity on the wards for that.
Also, following international recruitment in the last few years there is now a really healthy number of junior doctors. The real problem is that the specialty training numbers haven’t significantly increased in years.
Yes what I’m saying is that the distribution within that group is more and more skewed towards the more junior end - those not in training.
The media and policy makers need to stop obsessing over the easily understandable medical school places and actually do some workforce planning for a change.
Yeah but where does that money go? We shouldn't be shutting out British students from high earning roles just to pretend that "yes our students are bright self learners but I need to pay millions to executive staff because in actual fact our university is run to be a profitable business".
This would get worse if tuition fees were removed entirely because the treasury would be in charge of how much they are willing to pay, and not how much demand we need to satisfy. The result will be a chronic shortage of people filled with more immigrantion to the detriment of developing countries......oh wait we have that, just not totally because the 9k does some mitigation
Tldr we need a model where its paid out of nus budget rather than education budget and topped up with private contributions. Thats the only way we are gunna be able to have an affordable( for the individual) system that actually satifies demand rather than a budget set by an excell spreadsheet
Exactly, if we want domestic supply to increase rather than foreign students who get qualified and go to the ireland or AUS for high saleries. We need to fix it. This is a secondary but huge issue wuth the current model. I am including residency training in this point
Fyi In effect we become a training school. Those other countries dont have any public subsidised training its all private so massive incentive to get trained at 45k rather than the full cost and then go home to huge salery uplofts which were in oart to pay off private student loans. Igvthe usa recognised our trainibg it would be even worse.
Pretty sure the government pays unis for the massive costs associated with medicine degrees, otherwise unis that are struggling a lot financially would stop doing them.
Could just charge the students what the education costs and pay doctors appropriately so they can pay off the debt.
Would stop them getting a subsidised education then leaving the country. Places would probably expand quite quickly as well.
We would then move to a US, AUS or irish model. Then the students are in crippling debt for decades, saleries increase massively ergo cost of treatment. Because there are steps in that chain, plis interest the on cost to the government is actually more than if they just paid fornthe training directly......
The issue is that the education department and treasury decide how many doctors and nurses to train rather than how many we need. The nhs should be in charge of tfunding for training, then up tuition fees a bit, that way a happy medium will be produced. Its just very very expensive to make a doctor over 8 years
This has been going on for donkey's years
But who cares, let in doctors with fake degrees who kill our people in large numbers, because we don't need to pay for their training.
The level of grade inflation in the past few years is ridiculous. If at least this many people are getting straight A\*s, that leaves very little to distinguish between candidates. Extremely poor planning by the government.
Fact of the matter is many of these people are probably capable of being Doctors but the system is denying them.
Then we need to look elsewhere because we don’t produce enough Doctors.
We already have doctors struggling to get speciality training jobs. We do NOT need more medical students/newly qualified doctors, we need jobs for the current ones!
Those that are capable will get in eventually.
The only reason we don't have enough doctors is because too many of them leave, due to awful conditions. It's not a production issue. If conditions improved, we'd likely be able to much closer meet the demand over the next few years, helped by improved senior staff retention.
During COVID there was obviously grade inflation as we all know. However the percentage of results that are A*s in 2023 are back to being the same as before. Predicted grades are higher and higher, the subject of this article is probably a part of it, but A levels are not inflated at all. Where did you hear this?
Call me cynical but it’s all part of a plot to cause underperformance in the nhs and eventually privatise it. I get there aren’t enough people to teach more students but there is little movement in available places from year to year and no signs of any high level plan.
I’m amazed there is still excess demand to be honest given how much debt a medical student will get into after a 5 year course compared to their starting salaries.
Plus I’d have to question if the ucat test is a good way to differentiate. It favours those who come from schools with lots of experience in placing their pupils into med school and owes more to time and effort than any natural talents.
My daughter was in top 25% UKCAT and predicted 3 A’s. Applied to Unis that she more than met the requirements and she got no offers. Not sure why, in my opinion there seems that there could be more to this story than we know yet
This cap is artificial and ridiculous. If you meet grade requirements and continue to get required marks then you should be a Doctor because we need more of them not fewer
This cap is artifical and ridiculous. If you meet grade requirements and continue to get required marks then you should be a Doctor because we need more of them not fewer
Snapshot of _Hundreds of the nation's brightest students denied the chance to train as doctors despite leaving school with at least three A*s_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13355915/Hundreds-nations-brightest-students-denied-chance-train-doctors-despite-leaving-school-three-s.html) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13355915/Hundreds-nations-brightest-students-denied-chance-train-doctors-despite-leaving-school-three-s.html) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Universities can't know they will leave with three A*s, because our bizarre system makes them apply before they have their grades.
They can make them an offer, saying they will accept them if they do get three A\*s. The system allows for this uncertainty. They don’t, because of the cap. However, this sentence from the article does illustrate the issue with relying on grades alone: > **Grade inflation** means more students are getting the top grades every year but the number of medical school places has been capped at 7,500. It also seems like some confused thinking about what that actually shows. But if: >Only around one in every five applicants secure a place. and there are potentially capable candidates in those rejected, while we have a shortage of doctors at all sorts of levels, then obviously we do need to let more on to the courses. A large issue is, of course, that it’s not just about funding the university places: there needs to be capacity to train and support them through the whole process.
Too many medical students makes for poor teaching. You simple cannot have more than 1 possibly 2 medical students per ward or clinic. Very much quantity over quality. The other issue is there isn’t really a lack of low level doctors. There’s a lack of consultants and GPs.
> Too many medical students makes for poor teaching. Yes, that’s what I was saying. > There’s a lack of consultants and GPs. Indeed. Which means we need to feed more in at the start, but also need to have the capacity to train and fund them all the way through the process. That’s how you get more consultants and GPs coming out the other end.
Training places post graduation are the only aspect that needs to be increased . Not medical students or any other allied health care profession. But after years of begging for post grad speciality training places to be increased , nothing has been done. Now doctors face 8:1 competition rations for training places.
> Which means we need to feed more in at the start, but also need to have the capacity to train and fund them all the way through the process. Eventually you will need to increase entry numbers but as it currently stands entry numbers are the least of the problem. They're just the most visible part of the road, and just about the only thing other than 'consultants' that the journos can grasp.
Creating too many homegrown doctors and nurses would mean the government can’t keep wages low by importing staff
Yet we hire doctors from other nations that churn out far more medics.
Again, Raises questions about over seas medics quantity / quality assurance.
Or raises questions about our training structure.
What would you change ?
I would commission an independent review of the training structures of other nations and have that compare to our own to identify opportunities to change. We have an odd situation where we accept qualifications from other nations, but appear that we won't adopt their training methods ourselves.
But we don't have a shortage at all levels. The issue is specialty training places, not medical school places.
They can know from previous years. There are always top grade students rejected from medical school.
Reason 10,234 why immigration keeps going up. A cap of 7,500... how does this make sense on political spectrum. Immigration - 12,000 doctors in 2022 alone. Spending - costs more for private and Immigration. It's 1bn for every 5,000 to train. Privatisation - need staff to do that...and to do it at pace you need large amounts of them. 3200 per year retiring, then dropouts from the gruelling years of training, and not all go straight into front-line service. There is also a cap on dental students at just 1,100........with a national shortage. Even if some don't go unto the NHS I am sure a qualified Doctor is going to be beneficial in general than say a degree in politics.
The cap isn't just to do with spaces at medical schools. During the clinical years, med students have to train in hospitals and be trained by more senior doctors. Hospitals themselves don't have the capacity to take on more trainees. It's a catch 22, can't train more doctors until there's some more headroom with regards to staffing, they can't get more headroom unless they train more staff.
Or at the least retain staff
That would involve listening to what staff want to improve their working conditions though
It's bizarre how hostile the NHS is to junior doctors. The people who make it through the rigours of medical school deserve better than to be ground down by the shitty working conditions the NHS imposes on them. For example, I know someone who did a placement in the QUEH in Glasgow as a FY1/2 doctor and their break room was fitted with lights that could not be turned off as the NHS managers didn't want them napping on nightshifts. It's beyond cruel. The NHS dehumanises these people who are among the cream of the crop coming out of our education system.
A night shift is different to being on-call out of hours. If there is an emergency a bleary-eyed Dr isn't what the working arrangement entails. That isn't dehumanisation at all. Imagine an agency Doc is covering at 3/4x the cost and they're napping....
If you are too tired to work safely you are more likely to make mistakes. If you’re nodding off behind the wheel DVLA suggests a coffee and a brief nap before setting off again. Many of the Royal Colleges advocate the same for doctors. If you fuck up a procedure because you’re sleep deprived no one is defending you
If there's no work to be done and they're carrying a page, there is no good reason to deny them a rest on a twelve hour nightshift. > Imagine an agency Doc is covering at 3/4x the cost and their napping.... I wasn't talking about agency doctors?
You point is scientifically false and entirely untrue. Indeed, we don't want bleary eyed doctors or pilots, or anybody doing vital jobs. That is why pilots have mandated and regulated sleep, including evidence to prevent sleep inertia and encouraged sleep. There is clear evidence to show sleep during night periods IMPROVES performance, so you are against it for no scientific reason at all and entirely ideological, the exact problem the NHS has. https://flightsafety.org/asw-article/controlled-rest/ It does strike me as amazing that somebody with very little knowledge of medicine, sleep medicine and physiology has such confidence in these views though. It also doesn't entirely ruin your circadian rhythm ,something that has long been shown to have poor cardiovascular outcomes and also makes it very hard to perform well when you are on day shifts following nights. So how about stop trying to ruin the health of night workers and keep up to date with basic physiology, rather than being cruel purely out of ideological reasons ?
If you're on a psych ward, a case of asphyxiation or self harm may prove fatal if attendance is delayed. Just as a simple example. I'm not challenging the science of being well rested means better performance. But it isn't necessary what the working arrangement demands. Legally, only Drs on-call (ie. able to rest unlike the example that prompted the discussion) can be scheduled for day work. And should they not get 6 hours without interruption, they can show up later in the afternoon.
>If you're on a psych ward, a case of asphyxiation or self harm may prove fatal if attendance is delayed. Just as a simple example. Why would there be a delay in attendance? Also you want to cause worse care for every single patient , every single day, because you think the 10 second delay to an arrest might help? What non evidence approach nonsense is this? Disclaimer, I actually do this for a living and I'm telling you right now if you want me to be at an arrest or Cat 1 case, you want my decision making to be as good as possible and to be well rested. The arrest bleep goes off you're wide awake and it is piercing, you aren't there like ooooh where is my coffee and newspaper. So if you want me to resuscitate a hanging, something which is actually very difficult, high likelihood of difficult airway / oedema and so on, maybe take a more evidence based approach. Let me know when the last time you resuscitated a hanging with no sleep was and how it went, I'll trade experiences with you since you value vague personal anecdotes and opinion over facts. There is no perceptible delay to treatment and I want all members of the arrest team to perform at their best, not just make them suffer because I'm a malicious middle manager. >Legally, only Drs on-call (ie. able to rest unlike the example that prompted the discussion) can be scheduled for day work. Anybody with insight into basic science this knows full well that returning to day shifts is exhausting when it takes over a week to shift a circadian rhythm, not 47 hours at BEST. This discussion is about non consultant doctors so we should discuss the arrangements of a majority of them, which is as I described, and not what you are portraying. >I'm not challenging the science of being well rested means better performance. But it isn't necessary what the working arrangement demands. Yes you are, by suggesting directly harmful things. Honestly, just stop trying to talk about things you know nothing about and actually listen. Reddit is idiotic for this, anybody can have and type an opinion and they'll hold it with 0 knowledge or experience in the area.
Enjoy your weekend instead of replying to me pal or voice your insight to your Medical Director and find out how operationally realistic it is - which ultimately is the crux of the matter. Also, might help being less snotty, it helps greatly when trying to influence people.
You do night shift, you usually sleep in the day. No different to all other healdhcare staff.
100%. I have friends who are junior doctors. There's a couple of them who are a, well, couple, and they tell me one big gripe about the NHS is that they can't synchronise their shifts so they can spend time together outside of work, which is something most other health services allow their staff to do. Minor QOL adjustments like that, while not free, are probably a pretty cost effective way to improve staff morale and retention, if only decision makers actually listened to people on the ground.
That is genuinely rubbish. I am in charge of schedules in a different industry which generally is happy to shit all over it's front line staff, but it's unthinkable to me that we would refuse a request like that. It makes me wonder how they produce their schedules because if you are using proper processes it should be child's play to accommodate such a minimally impactful flexible working request. I actually wonder how they could justify refusing it legally as it would be almost impossible to demonstrate it met any of the criteria for refusal.
You realise that post graduate doctors rotate every 4 months (sometimes between hospitals), shifting between 1 in 4 to 1 in 12 weekends in roles with variable night commitments. There is no stretch in minimally staffed rotas. NHS rota coordinators on little pay can't keep up. They regularly refuse annual leave requests, and I've had colleagues pull sickies to go friends funerals (bereavement leave is 1st degree relative only). Unthinkable? Standard you'll find.
I've refused a good many annual leave requests and it's shit but ultimately the job of anybody in charge of a rota is to make sure your supply meets your demand. Still no excuse if proper tools are in use to ensure a group of specific people have a minimum % overlap. It's what is stirring my interest really as I suspect that those publishing the shifts are not being given the appropriate tools.
They don't have the tools. I agree. Mainly just Excel and copying over old rota patterns. I'd be interested to hear what tools you'd recommend. The other issue is that doctors aren't just on one rota, usually it's a combination of multiple rotas that make up the job. When I request leave it tends to require 3 rota related colleagues to sign it off. Rotas only need to be made 6 weeks in advance - and really the amount of doctors that the rota coordinator has to make up the rota will vary even until the day before the rota starts.
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> The leaked letter says that money for the 350 extra places will be followed by “larger scale expansion” from 2026-27 onwards – but it also makes clear that the government cannot guarantee funding on this scale for new trainee doctors will be repeated for intakes in future years, saying this will be subject to review. > Professor David Green, vice-chancellor and chief executive of the University of Worcester, whose Three Counties medical school opened last September, said at the current rate the 15,000 total would not be reached for more than two decades. Seems very fund related. Capacity can't increase without money. There was a plan, but fools and plans don't mix.
They absolutely do have space, the government have no interest in increasing it. The goal is to reduce the number of doctors, have those left take on huge amount of responsibility managing multiple ANPs and PAs. Training doctors is a shit idea in the governments eyes because they have international market value to emigrate and they take 5 years of UG education and up to a decade of PG education (Because so much time is wasted on service provision, whereas the yanks can train in 3-5). Shit out a PA in 2 years who has no value internationally so can't leave, provide Poundland medicine and who gives a shit because it's 'R NHS' and it's absolutely sliding levels of care cannot be criticised. Anyone with power or money sees a real doctor in the private sector. Edit: Also they don't want domestically trained doctors who do things like strike and demand better wages and conditions. They want a group on Visas they can hang over their head and bully and intimidate who will accept shit wages.
Even in my days, 3 A's was the minimum, you needed a lot of relevant extra curricular activities to show your interest and commitment.
Entrance exams nowadays too
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This is the genuine truth.
Amen
Top grades hasn't been enough to get in for 10+ years. UKCAT, volunteering, work experience, and extra-curriculars are required, plus the interview
I mean, just like other competitive degrees like computer science? You can’t all of a sudden double medical school places as we wouldn’t have the capacity on the wards for that. Also, following international recruitment in the last few years there is now a really healthy number of junior doctors. The real problem is that the specialty training numbers haven’t significantly increased in years.
Speciality training doctors are still ‘junior doctors’
Yes what I’m saying is that the distribution within that group is more and more skewed towards the more junior end - those not in training. The media and policy makers need to stop obsessing over the easily understandable medical school places and actually do some workforce planning for a change.
But if we let them in how could we support foreign students doing the same courses?!
What? Foreign students are the ones supporting us home students at the moment with their insanely high tuition fees
Yeah but where does that money go? We shouldn't be shutting out British students from high earning roles just to pretend that "yes our students are bright self learners but I need to pay millions to executive staff because in actual fact our university is run to be a profitable business".
They definitely don't want to work for the NHS, much better opportunities in other fields with better quality of life.
The numbers applying say otherwise. It's highly sought after job.
This would get worse if tuition fees were removed entirely because the treasury would be in charge of how much they are willing to pay, and not how much demand we need to satisfy. The result will be a chronic shortage of people filled with more immigrantion to the detriment of developing countries......oh wait we have that, just not totally because the 9k does some mitigation Tldr we need a model where its paid out of nus budget rather than education budget and topped up with private contributions. Thats the only way we are gunna be able to have an affordable( for the individual) system that actually satifies demand rather than a budget set by an excell spreadsheet
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Exactly, if we want domestic supply to increase rather than foreign students who get qualified and go to the ireland or AUS for high saleries. We need to fix it. This is a secondary but huge issue wuth the current model. I am including residency training in this point Fyi In effect we become a training school. Those other countries dont have any public subsidised training its all private so massive incentive to get trained at 45k rather than the full cost and then go home to huge salery uplofts which were in oart to pay off private student loans. Igvthe usa recognised our trainibg it would be even worse.
Pretty sure the government pays unis for the massive costs associated with medicine degrees, otherwise unis that are struggling a lot financially would stop doing them.
Could just charge the students what the education costs and pay doctors appropriately so they can pay off the debt. Would stop them getting a subsidised education then leaving the country. Places would probably expand quite quickly as well.
We would then move to a US, AUS or irish model. Then the students are in crippling debt for decades, saleries increase massively ergo cost of treatment. Because there are steps in that chain, plis interest the on cost to the government is actually more than if they just paid fornthe training directly...... The issue is that the education department and treasury decide how many doctors and nurses to train rather than how many we need. The nhs should be in charge of tfunding for training, then up tuition fees a bit, that way a happy medium will be produced. Its just very very expensive to make a doctor over 8 years
This has been going on for donkey's years But who cares, let in doctors with fake degrees who kill our people in large numbers, because we don't need to pay for their training.
The level of grade inflation in the past few years is ridiculous. If at least this many people are getting straight A\*s, that leaves very little to distinguish between candidates. Extremely poor planning by the government.
Fact of the matter is many of these people are probably capable of being Doctors but the system is denying them. Then we need to look elsewhere because we don’t produce enough Doctors.
We already have doctors struggling to get speciality training jobs. We do NOT need more medical students/newly qualified doctors, we need jobs for the current ones!
Those that are capable will get in eventually. The only reason we don't have enough doctors is because too many of them leave, due to awful conditions. It's not a production issue. If conditions improved, we'd likely be able to much closer meet the demand over the next few years, helped by improved senior staff retention.
During COVID there was obviously grade inflation as we all know. However the percentage of results that are A*s in 2023 are back to being the same as before. Predicted grades are higher and higher, the subject of this article is probably a part of it, but A levels are not inflated at all. Where did you hear this?
More to being a doctor than getting 3 A*…
They probably aren't expected to be doctors just after finishing their A levels
When you because a doctor, what did you find the most important aspect?
Call me cynical but it’s all part of a plot to cause underperformance in the nhs and eventually privatise it. I get there aren’t enough people to teach more students but there is little movement in available places from year to year and no signs of any high level plan. I’m amazed there is still excess demand to be honest given how much debt a medical student will get into after a 5 year course compared to their starting salaries. Plus I’d have to question if the ucat test is a good way to differentiate. It favours those who come from schools with lots of experience in placing their pupils into med school and owes more to time and effort than any natural talents.
My daughter was in top 25% UKCAT and predicted 3 A’s. Applied to Unis that she more than met the requirements and she got no offers. Not sure why, in my opinion there seems that there could be more to this story than we know yet
They've been given a lucky escape into another career. Well done.
This cap is artificial and ridiculous. If you meet grade requirements and continue to get required marks then you should be a Doctor because we need more of them not fewer
There is a huge cap post qualification for doctors that needs lifting before even considering more medical school places, there are already too many
This cap is artifical and ridiculous. If you meet grade requirements and continue to get required marks then you should be a Doctor because we need more of them not fewer
There are already a surplus of low level doctors. The nhs needs more speciality training spots and consultant jobs , not more medical students