PERSHORE’s MP Harriett Baldwin has welcomed the publication of a plan which will help to train more doctors and nurses to work in the NHS – including more students at the county’s brand-new medical school.
The West Worcestershire MP has pressed for the Government to invest more in the Three Counties Medical School to allow it to train more domestic students and has urged the Department for Health and Care to take up the immediate extra capacity offered by the new site.
The University of Worcester is already renowned for its nursing and paramedic training capability and now it hopes to expand the medical school to deliver many more doctors into the local health system.
It’s newly-opened medical school is currently preparing to train up to 48 students from September, but it could offer 12 extra places for this year from its waiting list and scale up student numbers to up to 150 next year.
The new NHS workforce plan, which will be worth £2.4billion, will support the NHS meaning that nationally, by 2031 there will be 60,000 more doctors and 170,000 more nurses.
Mrs Baldwin said: “I’ve been lobbying for extra funding for our new medical school for many years and this has always been dependent on the Government developing a long-term strategy to increase the NHS workforce.
“Whenever I have met with local health chiefs, they have said that they need to make longer term plans to retain and recruit staff to work in Worcester and a new local medical school was considered to be the best possible solution.
“We’ve now delivered the stunning new school, invested many millions of pounds in new buildings at the main county hospital and now we are funding places at the new medical school to train local doctors.
“Our local NHS is going from strength to strength and this local medical school will give us the doctors of the future.”
