Stephen Kinnock

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for securing this vital debate, and all the hon. Members who have contributed. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s significant and distinguished career and experience in our NHS. I take the opportunity to thank resident doctors up and down the country for the vital contribution they make to our NHS and to treating the patients it serves. As my hon. Friend said in his opening speech, the UK foundation programme is a central part of the pathway to becoming a doctor, bridging the gap between medical school and specialty or general practice training in the NHS. It supports newly qualified doctors to develop the clinical and professional skills needed to deliver safe and effective care, preparing them for progression into core, specialty or general practice training. Resident doctors who currently work in the NHS have made it clear that they have concerns and frustrations with their training experience. We are committed to listening to and addressing that and to improving the training pathway for the medical workforce, for the benefit of NHS services and patients. Through phase 1 of the medical training review we conducted extensive engagement to ensure that doctors, patients and NHS leaders had the opportunity to describe what works well in medical education and training and what needs to improve to meet the needs of both resident doctors and patients. The phase 1 diagnostic report was published last year and made 11 recommendations centred on four key priorities: more flexible training; removing the divide between service and training; ending the damaging recruitment bottlenecks and rewarding teams where doctors feel valued. The implementation team, led by Dame Jane Dacre, who has been appointed as the independent chair for this work, will now work with doctors, the General Medical Council, the Medical Schools Council, royal colleges and other bodies to drive this much-needed change.