THE NHS will train more working-class doctors to boost homegrown talent.
Two thirds of new hires currently come from abroad.
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Health Secretary Wes Streeting said it is “shameful” that just five per cent of UK medical students are working-class.
Medical schools will be pushed to enrol students from deprived areas, with the top hirers given extra funding.
It takes five to ten years and £250,000 to get through medical school, most covered by grants and loans.
Mr Streeting said: “Too often, there’s a brick wall between working-class children and an aspiration to become a doctor. They are being written off and denied opportunity.”
He said the drive will also help patients feel less intimidated by posh medics, adding: “We need real relationships and people from every walk of life.”
It adds to a non-university scheme creating 1,000 NHS jobs for people in deprived areas.
Their GP surgeries are also set to benefit from £2.2billion taken off poorly-performing hospitals.
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All kids deserve chance in NHS
By Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
WHEREVER you grow up in the UK, you should be able to work as a doctor, nurse or in the NHS if you want to.
But too often, there’s a brick wall between working-class children and any aspiration to become a doctor.
They’re being written off and often denied opportunity. Right now there are far too few entering the NHS.
We’re going to set out in our Ten-Year Plan fundamental changes to how we recruit people to become doctors.
Only five per cent of medical school entrants are from a working-class background.
Alongside Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, I am asking universities to up their game to get more of these youngsters into lecture theatres and on to wards.
Any funding for more places will go to med schools doing just that.
We will publish data on the relevant background of university entrants, starting with medicine.
There are many times when growing up on a council estate in a single-parent household means I’ve been treated as being lesser.
This Government will make sure that there are more working class people working in the NHS than ever before.
