The number of medical school places will increase by 25% in a bid to make NHS England ‘self-sufficient’.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced there will be 1,500 additional training places available each year, however he has called for greater loyalty to the NHS in return.
The trainees will need to work for the NHS for a minimum of four years after graduation, or be faced with repaying some of their £220,000 training bill.
As medical degrees take five years to complete, it will be 2024 before the impact of these extra places is felt.
Prime Minister Theresa May told the BBC: “We want to see the NHS able to recruit doctors from this country. We want to see more British doctors in the NHS.”
Mr Hunt said: “We need to prepare the NHS for the future, which means doing something we have never done properly before – training enough doctors.
“Currently a quarter of our doctors come from overseas. They do a fantastic job and we have been clear that we want EU nationals who are already here to stay post-Brexit.
“But is it right to import doctors from poorer countries that need them, while turning away bright home graduates desperate to study medicine?”
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