Following on from the recent news that the NHS is employing a record number of doctors and nurses, Health Education England (HEE) has announced that almost 900 more medical specialty training posts have been created.
Of the 876 total training posts, 273 will be in psychiatry and 270 will be in cancer-associated specialties – unlike in previous years, the training posts will be tactically distributed to best tackle health inequalities and meet patient needs up and down the country.
Professor Wendy Reid, HEE Director of Education and Quality and Executive Medical Director said: “The announcement of additional training posts is excellent news. Training more doctors is positive for patients and demonstrates our commitment to building a sustainable workforce at a crucial time for the NHS.
“It follows a year where we have continued to hit recruitment targets and attract more people to pursue a career in the NHS. We have seen that the number of doctors keen to join the NHS continues to rise, so it is important that we are able to reflect this with growth in our specialty training programmes.”
As Professor Reid notes, the announcement comes after a successful year of recruitment milestones with 11,207 doctors enrolling on training programmes starting from last August – the fifth consecutive year the record has been broken.
That number includes over 4,000 trainees accepting placements to become GPs, meaning HEE has hit the Government’s speciality GP recruitment target for the fifth year in a row also.
NHS Medical Director, Professor Sir Stephen Powis, said: “These new roles are an investment by NHS England in our fantastic workforce and are part of plans to have a more sustainable workforce supply, which can better support frontline teams in delivering world-leading care for patients.
“Our staff are at the heart of what makes the NHS so special to so many people and I’d encourage anyone interested in joining us – in whatever role – to search ‘health careers’ today to see what difference you could make to the millions who use our services each and every day.”
