§ Mr. BayleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer, to the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) of 21 April 1993,Official Report, column 126, what will be the cost of training the additional medical students; and what will be their impact on national health service costs when they become (i) trainees and (ii) consultants/general practitioner principals.
§ Mr. SackvilleThe United Kingdom medical student target intake has been increased by 240 places each year in order to meet the forecast service needs of the national health service.
The first report of the Medical Manpower Standing Advisory Committee (MMSAC), a copy of which is available in the Library, indicated that the total recurrent funding from the Department of Education and the NHS was some £180,000 per medical student over five years at 1992–93 levels. Funding for the new intake targets will be determined by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the NHS as part of their 1994–95 funding allocations in due course. It is unlikely that the marginal cost of increasing medical school intake will be as high as the current average costs of training.
The subsequent impact of the additional medical graduates on NHS costs will depend on a wide range of factors, including future service development priorities, salary levels and the career choices of the doctors themselves. In the hospital and community health services the demand for doctors depends on the decisions made by purchasers and providers on how best to use the funding allocated to them to meet local health care needs; an increase in the available supply of doctors will not in itself add to costs. In the general medical services, admission to practice reflects decisions of the Medical Practices Committee which will among other things take into 29W account the available supply of potential general practitioners, but there is no automatic linkage between additional supply and additional NHS costs.