Data published by NHS Education for Scotland shows that 691 posts were advertised across a range of medical specialties this year and 683 of those posts have been filled successfully, equating to a fill rate of 99%. This is a further improvement on recruitment at the same stage in 2020, as the number of places filled has increased by 8 percentage points.
Twelve out of fourteen training programmes achieved 100% recruitment with General Practice achieving a 98.1% fill rate. These specialties include Anaesthetics, Clinical Radiology and Public Health Medicine.
In General Practice, a total of 264 from a possible 269 were filed with more to be advertised in a later recruitment round this year. Core Psychiatry has also seen the best ever results by filing all 43 advertised posts.
Health Secretary Humza Yousaf MSP said:
“As Scotland looks to recover from the impact of COVID-19, it is both welcome and encouraging news that 2021 has so far been the most successful year for the recruitment of trainee doctors.
“It has been an unprecedented success: For the first time ever, 100% of Core Psychiatry training posts and 98.1% of General Practice training posts have been filled. With one recruitment round remaining this year, we expect that the few remaining training posts will have equally high fill rates and we will continue to focus our attention on the services that will be most needed by Scotland’s population over the coming years.”
Kenneth Gibson MSP added:
“These are heartening figures to help increase the number of doctors in Scotland, but there is more to come.
“In line with the 2021 manifesto, the SNP Government is increasing the number of medical school training places by at least 100 per year, whilst doubling the number of places on the Widening Access to Medicine programme to help create a more diverse medical workforce.
“I encourage young people who are thinking of becoming a doctor to visit the NHSScotland careers website. Medicine is a broad field with many disciplines, and it may be the way to a fulfilling career.”
ENDS
