UK to gain two new medical schools
The UK will have two new
medical schools by 2002, the
Higher Education Funding
Council of England (HEFCE)
announced last month. The
development is part of a joint
HEFCE and Department of
Health programme to increase
the number of medical students by 1100 each year by
2005. The increase is needed
to counter a growing shortage
of NHS doctors.
The new medical schools
will be based at the University
of East Anglia and in the south
west of England. The University of East Anglia Medical
School will be situated on the
existing university campus in
Norwich, with provision for
clinical teaching at the new
Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.
In the south west, a Peninsula
Medical School will be run as a
joint venture between Exeter
and Plymouth Universities.
Teaching will be spread across
three sites in Exeter, Plymouth,
and Truro. The Peninsula
school will provide more doctors for the region, which currently produces only 4% of doctors to meet the medical needs of 10% of the UK population.
Both medical schools will
run five year courses and
together they will train 237
new doctors a year. The Peninsula Medical School will admit
127 undergraduates a year,
while East Anglia will take on
110. The first students are
expected to start in 2002.
A further 869 places a year
will be created within existing
medical schools. Approximately 150 of these have
already been introduced.
Medical schools will bid for
the remaining places, which
will be in place by 2005 at the latest.
The HEFCE further
announced that King's College London is to introduce a
new six year course aimed at
widening the ethnic and social
mix of its medical students.
The "Access to Medicine"
course, which will take up to
50 undergraduates, will merge
with the standard five year
programme for the final three
years. The first places are likely to be available from 2001.
An alternative selection procedure will be used to identify
potential students, so that
selection is not based solely
on academic performance. As
part of the scheme, King's
College London will also run
an outreach programme in
schools, sixth form, and further education colleges in
south London. This will aim to
promote medicine as an
attractive career and to raise
the aspirations of disadvantaged pupils and students.
Carolyn Edwards, Leeds
studentBMJ 2000;08:259-302 August ISSN 0966-6494
