Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of advertised Consultant posts are unfilled; and what assessment he has made of the reasons for those vacancies.

Stephen Hammond, Minister of State for Health: The proportion of unfilled advertised consultant posts in England is not held centrally.

Since April 2017, NHS Improvement collect vacancy rates of medical staff from individual National Health Service providers and publish them as part of their ‘Quarterly performance of the NHS provider sector’ report found at the following link:

https://improvement.nhs.uk/documents/4942/Performance_of_the_NHS_provider_sector_for_the_quarter_ended_31_Dec_2018.pdf

The Department is taking steps to increase the supply of consultants in the future. By September 2020, there will be 1,500 more undergraduate medical school places every year by September 2020, 630 of which were taken up in September 2018. Five brand new medical schools will help deliver these places, alongside existing medical schools which have demonstrated a commitment to sending more trainees to rural or coastal areas and increasing the number of general practitioners and mental health specialists.

Hansard

233434