Medical apprenticeships: what we know so far, and what happens next

What are medical or doctor apprenticeships?

The planned “medical doctor degree apprenticeship” opens up an alternative route into medicine as a career, beyond the current medical degree route. NHS England’s long term workforce plan for the NHS, published in June 2023, has projected that 13% of England’s medical students in 2031 will be apprentices.1

“The main difference between the apprenticeship and a traditional medical degree is that apprentices will work in healthcare from the beginning of their degree while also studying the academic subjects of a medical degree,” says Elizabeth Hughes, medical director for undergraduate medicine at NHS England. They will “typically” last five years, she adds, although the programme being developed at the University of Plymouth’s Peninsula Medical School lasts four years, subject to its approval (see main box).

Apprentices will have an employer—an NHS trust or other healthcare provider—whose apprenticeship is delivered by a medical school. “All medical doctor degree apprenticeships are delivered through a relationship between the apprentice, the employer, and the medical school,” Hughes tells The BMJ. Apprentices will earn a salary as they train, and they won’t have to pay tuition fees.2

When do the schemes start?

Plans for the apprenticeships were formalised in July 2022, when the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and the Department for Education signed off the medical doctor degree apprenticeship standard.3 This lays out the skills, knowledge, and behaviour standards that apprentices will need to meet to complete the apprenticeship successfully.

In January 2023 Health Education England, the body then responsible for NHS recruitment and training, confirmed funding for the first …