Labour move forward with plans for resident doctor training places
Despite the BMA not calling off their resident doctor strike before Christmas, the Labour government is still moving ahead with some plans it offered them, to deal with training places.
So today will see a new Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill presented to the Commons for first reading by the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting.
The bill is described as a "bill to make provision about the prioritisation of graduates from medical schools in the United Kingdom and certain other persons for places on medical training programmes."
Several years back rules were relaxed to allow for more recruitment of overseas trained doctors onto speciality training schemes.
This was partly done to fill gaps, as we were seeing an increase of UK graduates going overseas during or after their foundation training years.
But some are returning. And the number of UK trained doctors is increasing. Overseas trained doctors are applying in larger numbers & currently have to be treated equally to UK trained doctors.
Meaning increasingly large numbers of UK trained doctors are missing out on training places, even though training places are increasing in line with medical graduates.
This bill aims to fix this.
It will prioritise those doctors trained in the UK for speciality training places. It has 2 benefits:
1) UK trained doctors are able to continue their training
2) we steal fewer overseas trained doctors from countries while likely need them
So I'm really happy to see this bill!
Extra information
Here is an update on the key take aways from the bill, on Tuesday evening, now that the bill has been published.
UK Foundation Programme
The UK Foundation Programme (first 2 years work after graduation) must prioritise UK medical graduates or those in a priority group before anyone else (I will explain ‘priority groups’ later.
Speciality training programmes in 2026
In 2026 ONLY, speciality training programmes must prioritise:
UK medical graduates,
those in a priority group and
persons who are on/completed a relevant UK training programme
There is then a second list which, for 2026, is of equal consideration to the three groups above:
a British citizen (i.e. one who trained overseas),
a Commonwealth citizen,
an Irish citizen,
a person with indefinite leave to enter or remain in the UK or
a person who have leave to enter or remain in the UK under the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020
All five of these groups would not have done medical training in the UK. If they had, they would almost certainly meet criteria 1 or 3 above.
Speciality training programmes in 2027 onwards
The rules then change from 2027 onwards for speciality training programmes. The first three groups remain a priority:
UK medical graduates,
those in a priority group, and
persons who are on/completed a relevant UK training programme
But the second list is not specified - instead any extra groups of people to be included for equal consideration from 2027 onwards must be specified in separate regulations.
These regulations could be made by the Secretary of State and can apply to the whole UK, subject to approval from devolved administrations. Or they may be individually made by the devolved administrations themselves. Which groups are included could different in each nation.
Other considerations
The 2026 rules apply only to offering applicants places on speciality training programmes, while the 2027 rules will apply to both the offering of places on the programmes and, before that, to the offering of interviews for the programmes.
I believe this makes sense, as applications for the 2026 cycle will have already begun and likely impossible to apply the rules to interviews for many programmes. While the option to set exactly who is consider of equal priority to the core list of applications via regulations for future years allows for flexibility and a bespoke approach as needed.
The final thing to explore is what a ‘priority group’ means. These groups will ALWAYS have equal priority to UK trained medical graduates for both foundation programmes and speciality training.
It includes two groups of people. The first, people who hold a medical qualification from an institution in Ireland and did not spend most/all of their time training for it outside of Ireland. This is likely included due to long-term relations between the UK and Ireland.
The second group is people who hold a medical qualification from an institution in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland. This seems like an odd group at first, but the UK has free trade agreements with these countries. It is likely explicitly included in the FTAs to set rules about medical training - likely so that people from these countries cannot be treated differently to those trained in the UK. But applicant numbers from these countries are likely small.
And on a final note - this is based on the bill as first published. The bill needs to go through both Houses of Parliament, and as it does, it is likely to see many amendments laid. Some are likely to become part of the bill - either new clauses covering new areas, or changes to existing clauses. So while it is likely the final bill will work very similarly to what is outlined above, anything could technically change before this becomes law.
Bill on the Parliament website: Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill