New data published today shows competition for prioritised applicants has more than halved, meaning UK medical graduates and other doctors with significant NHS experience have a significantly better chance of progressing into specialty training.  

Health minister, Karin Smyth, said: ‘By creating over 1,000 additional training posts in 2027, and up to 4,500 over the next three years, we are getting better value from taxpayers' investment in training our doctors, while building the specialist workforce patients need across the country.'

The extra training posts are being delivered as part of a deal agreed with resident doctors which brought 15 rounds of industrial action to an end on 29 June 2026.

BMA resident doctors committee chair Callum Parr welcomed the news that competition ratios for priority group residents had more than halved.

He said sustainable improvement would only come, however, if the Government committed to ‘a genuinely forward-thinking workforce plan'.

Parr commented: ‘There are doctors today who will be looking with a sigh of relief, as the bottlenecks that threatened to derail their whole career now looks far less intimidating. This policy will have secured the work of many doctors in the NHS for years to come.'