Professor Rich Withnall responds to the planned growth in medical student numbers

Responding to the announcement from the Department of Health and Social Care of 350 extra medical school places from 2025/26, Professor Rich Withnall, Chief Executive Officer of the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management said:

“This is a welcome long-term boost for undergraduate medical education that will help deliver some of the aims of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. FMLM also welcomes the fact that this is targeted to address disparities in the distribution of places, with under-doctored areas seeing a greater boost to numbers.

“But further funding is also needed to support Universities’ teaching Faculties, infrastructure, curricula development and clinical placements to ensure that medical training is the best it can possibly be, and UK patients can continue to benefit from a truly world-class health service in the long run.

“In an overstretched NHS, we must prepare medical students for the realities of life at the clinical Front Line from Day One. We must further foster their compassionate leadership, followership, resilience, collaboration and understanding of the working environment to enable them to thrive, and to provide the best possible care for the patients they serve.”