Health Education England has reported that record numbers of doctors are joining NHS specialty training programmes with more applicants, more posts and the highest ever fill rate.
The 2021 fill rate for England is 99.18 per cent across all specialties showing year on year improvement for four years running. 7846 doctors, an increase of 282 doctors over 2020, have accepted posts despite the challenges of the pandemic in delivering the recruitment exercises. The data shows recruitment for posts in England starting in August 2021, across all medical specialities.
HEE has also revealed that applications this year have gone up by 35 per cent. Possible reasons for this include restrictions on travel overseas due to the pandemic, resulting in more UK trained applicants, and new health and care worker visas which support submissions from international applicants.
Despite more posts, the increase in applicants has made this year the most competitive on record meaning more doctors will not have got the training post they wanted. HEE is committed to supporting these doctors over the coming months, including encouraging applications for further recruitment rounds. Recruitment for posts starting from August this year has now been completed but the next round opens in July, offering further training posts starting in January 2022.
Wendy Reid, HEE Director of Education and Quality and Medical Director, said: “Once again this year we have excellent fill rates across all medical specialties which is good news for patients, the NHS and the profession. We will be training more doctors in primary care, cancer and mental health all of which are NHS priorities, and we are progressing well towards the target of 4,000 GP trainees.
“The 2021 recruitment round saw a 35% increase in applicants compared to previous years which reflects the number of junior doctors keen to pursue an NHS career. It is excellent news that we have managed to fill our training posts almost to maximum capacity however the high numbers of applications do mean that it has been very competitive and not all applicants will have been successful. We will be working with partners in trusts, the Royal Colleges and the BMA to support those doctors who were not successful this time so they can review the available options.”
