The Government has committed to making the NHS in England self-sufficient in doctors by opening up medical training to many more people in our country.It is right that the NHS is always, free at the point of delivery, when you need it and so ensuring the NHS will always have the doctors it needs.
The plan is to increase the number of medical student training places in England by up to 25 per cent – from 6,000 to up to 7,500 – to ensure the NHS is self-sufficient. Alongside this there will be an obligation that those students who benefit from a taxpayer subsidy for their medical studies are required to work in the NHS for at least four years after leaving university.
It cannot be correct for their to be a cap on the number of medical training places in England. Half of applicants are turned down and denied the opportunity to undertake a medical degree because the number of medical student places is artificially limited to 6,000 a year.
Currently the NHS is spending growing amounts of money on agency staff – when this money could be going on patient care. Last year hospitals spent £3.3 billion on agency staff, including £1.2 billion on medical locums.
Only the NHS is safe with the Conservatives:
• Increasing funding for the NHS by £10 billion a year by 2020, of which £6 billion will be delivered by the end of 2016-17. The NHS budget will rise from £101 billion today to £120 billion by 2020-21.
• Delivered almost 8,800 more doctors and almost 5,600 more nurses and midwives in our NHS compared to 2010.
• The NHS performed 4,400 more operations a day and treated on average 21,000 more out-patients a day last year compared to 2010.
