The Doctor’s Association UK (www.dauk.org) is a not-for-profit organisation which advocates for the medical profession and for patients. It is composed of front-line NHS doctors and students.

They have raised some concerns about the future medical degree doctor apprenticeship and written a letter to the government. Here are some of the points they have raised.

• With the current staffing crisis in the NHS, there are not enough resources to teach students who are undertaking medical doctor degree apprenticeships

• Students on a medical doctor degree apprenticeship must receive the same standard of medical education as those on traditional courses

• Health Education England (HEE) needs to clarify where the supervision of medical doctor degree apprenticeships will come from, without impacting current patient services and without using the students as cheap service provision.

• We mentioned in a previous article that medical students in the past have been used as phlebotomists and porters which offer limited educational value.

• Universities will have the choice whether to create a new course for medical doctor degree apprenticeships or update the current medical degree course to a more blended approach. DAUK argues for reform of the current medical degree course rather than creating a new medical degree apprenticeship course

• Managing two cohorts of students will increase the workload and administration for medical schools.

• Assuming medical doctor degree apprentices are paid the minimum wage, and traditional medical students will have to pay student fees, there will likely be more competition for the apprentice route into medicine purely on financial reasons. This could result in applications down the traditional route falling (although we think the impact of this would be minimal as there are only 100 medical doctor degree apprenticeship places currently mentioned).

• If both medical doctor degree apprentices and traditional medical students attend the same placements, there is likely to be hostility between the two groups, with one paying for training and the other being paid to be trained.

• Medical school places should be increased with a blended approach so that more doctors are being trained without the complication of managing a separate course

• At the moment there is a bottleneck at the end of medical training, with not enough foundation jobs for the number of medical graduates.

• The number of medical school places and adding medical doctor degree apprenticeships cannot be increased without increasing foundation places. At the moment there is no guarantee that students that complete the medical doctor degree apprenticeships will have a job at the end of training.

• Clarification is needed how the government intends to fund doctor posts that medical degree doctor apprentices will enter once training is complete. This in view of the fact that the government is currently not prepared to fund the doctors it already has, as highlighted in the pay restoration campaign.

• At the moment current traditional medical students are going through a funding crisis. Many medical students are working on top of medical studies just to eat. Surely funding should be directed at current medical students rather than funding a new programme.

• Currently apprentices are paid at the national minimum wage, but the employing trusts doe have the discretion to pay more. This would cause more competition in trusts paying more salary and not improve widening access to medicine at all.

• There are concerns that those completing the medical doctor degree apprenticeship will not have the qualifications to work abroad.

• At the time of writing this blog, we are waiting for the government’s response to these concerns.

Blue Peanut Medical is run by a group of doctors who help students get into medical school. We help with training for the UCAT examination and Medical School Interviews, as well as provide Clinical Work Experience Placements. Please get in touch if you need any further information at support@bluepeanut.co.uk