To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to increase the level of the recruitment and retention of core and higher trainees in psychiatry in England; and if will he make a statement.

As set out in ‘Stepping forward to 2020/21: The mental health workforce plan for England’, published in July 2017, Health Education England (HEE) is working with the Royal College of Psychiatrists to address the fill rates in psychiatry specialty training. This includes offering doctors greater exposure to psychiatry during foundation training, greater flexibility throughout training and reducing attrition rates.

Supported by HEE, the Royal College of Psychiatrists launched the ‘Choose Psychiatry’ campaign in 2017, encouraging doctors to take up psychiatry for their specialty training. Building on the ‘Enhancing Junior Doctors’ Working Lives’ report, HEE will explore flexibility throughout the training pathway. HEE and the College will work together with trainees to understand what makes them leave throughout the course and attract more trainees for mental health during key transition points, such as from core to higher points in specialty training.

The Government is rolling out 1,500 new medical school places in England, 630 of which were taken up this September. The allocation of 1,000 of these places was prioritised to universities that can best meet the Government’s objectives, one of which was increasing the number of students who go on to work in psychiatry, with a focus on priority locations including rural and coastal – and included five brand new medical schools in England.