The Labour Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer and Health Secretary @wesstreeting are now talking about cutting the number of offered NHS doctor speciality training jobs, and this should concern the public, not just doctors. Doctors don’t become Consultants, GPs or Surgeons straight after medical school. After graduating, they have to enter speciality training, to train to become these specialists. If you reduce the number of training posts, you reduce the number of specialist doctors available to treat patients. The UK is already an under-doctored country compared to many European nations, and we already have long waiting lists across the NHS. At the same time, thousands of qualified doctors are being turned away from speciality training every year because there simply are not enough training posts. There were 40,000 doctors applying for 10,000 speciality training jobs in 2025 alone. Cutting training posts will not reduce waiting lists or improve patient care. It will do the opposite, because fewer training posts means fewer specialists available to see patients, perform operations, and run services. So when people are waiting months to see a specialist or years for surgery, it is important to understand that a major reason of this is because the number of training posts is capped, and those caps are a political decision as the number of available jobs is set by the Government. Instead, we have a Labour Government directly threatening to cut the number of offered doctors jobs. When you have to wait years for your surgery or months to see a specialist, ask yourself why.

Thousands of people who have had a stroke are ending up severely disabled or dying because the NHS does not have enough stroke consultants to treat them quickly enough. What’s less well known is one of the reasons why this is happening. The Government is capping the number of doctors who can train to become Consultants/GPs. This year, 8,841 doctors applied for just 1,678 internal medical training jobs. These jobs are essential for doctors to progress to consultant level including those who want to specialise in stroke medicine. At the same time as patients face long waits, the NHS is turning away thousands of fully qualified doctors every year. Doctors are being forced into unemployment or leaving the NHS altogether, not because they aren’t good enough, but because there are simply no training jobs available. This is catastrophic workforce planning having a direct impact on patients. Despite this, the Government has still not put forward a credible solution to the doctors’ jobs crisis. This crisis is one of the reasons why @BMAResidents are reballoting. 🗳️ Resident doctors: return your ballot by 26th January. 📮 No ballot? Request a replacement here: bit.ly/BMAReballotRequestFor… Patients and doctors should not pay the price for bad political choices.

After years of study and sacrifice, doctors are being left unemployed by the NHS. This year’s specialty training competition makes it clear: too many doctors are being blocked from specialising despite the country desperately needing more consultants and GPs. Behind every statistic is a doctor who has given up years of their life to serve patients, only to be told there is no place for them. Those who do find posts are still met with low pay, unsafe conditions, and relentless demands from politicians to do more. This is not just unfortunate; it is a national disgrace. A failure by every Health Secretary and senior leader in medical education who allowed this crisis to grow year after year. The reality is simple: doctors want to serve patients, but they are being forced out of the NHS by design. This isn’t a natural disaster. It is a deliberate political choice to underfund training and drive doctors out. medical.hee.nhs.uk/medical-t…