The General Medical Council (GMC) today (Tuesday 24 March) launched its annual survey on medical training.

The anonymous survey is the UK’s largest annual insight into postgraduate medical training, with more than 71,000 respondents last year.

National Training Survey

Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “The National Training Survey is one of the most important tools we have for understanding the pressures facing doctors in training.

“We do encourage every trainee and trainer to complete it, as responses can lead to real change.

“But year after year, the data tells the same story. Burnout is endemic, rota gaps undermine training and too many doctors do not feel safe raising concerns.

“The GMC must demonstrate that collecting this data leads to enforceable action, not just another report.”

Specialty training

Dr Kneale added: “With the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act now law and specialty training applications at record levels, the survey must evolve to capture the full reality of the training crisis, including the impact of the bottleneck on morale and career uncertainty.”

For the first time, doctors will be asked if their employer encourages a culture of shared learning and knowledge between different healthcare professionals.

The GMC said this was ‘to capture how well trainees feel supported to engage in multidisciplinary communication, which is critical for safe patient care’.

Dr Kneale said: “We note the introduction of a new question on shared learning between healthcare professionals.

Patient safety

“DAUK supports effective multidisciplinary working, but the GMC must ensure this data is not used to advance workforce substitution agendas without addressing scope of practice and patient safety.”

The survey takes around 20 minutes to complete and runs until midday on Wednesday 6 May. It includes questions on discriminatory behaviours, quality of teaching and supervision, workloads, burnout, and training opportunities.  

The results will be published later this year. Find out more about the National Training Survey. 

Professor Pushpinder Mangat, GMC medical director and director of education and standards, said: “The results of this survey are vital for supporting doctors and protecting patients.

Real-life action

“They translate into real-life action when it comes to patient safety, and the environments doctors work and train in. 

“Therefore, it is important that trainees and trainers take the time to share their perspectives.

“The results will be used to improve doctors’ experiences, as well as those of their peers and patients, by highlighting areas of good practice and those where action is needed.”

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Specialty training

She is currently working in a trust-grade post, and described trying to secure a higher specialty training position as ‘nerve-wracking’ Dr Novintan, who wants to train in plastic surgery, was unable to find a single training post in her region this year. Nationally, there were only 42 posts for more than 280 applicants. Speaking to the i Paper, she said: “It’s very much on my mind that this is my second time applying. “If I weren’t to get a job this time, that would mean two years out of training,” adding it was a “substantial time to put your life on hold”. According to the i Paper, there were 92,000 applications for just 12,800 specialty training places across the UK in 2024. That’s a ratio of 7.2 to one. In some fields, the competition is even steeper such as 98 applicants per role in sexual health and 74 per post in cardiothoracic surgery.

Medical student

Miss Maya Machesney is DAUK’s medical student co-lead and a final-year student at the University of Sheffield. “It feels like a random lottery,” she said. “We’re worried that getting into specialty training will become less about passion and more about simply getting a job.” DAUK has called for urgent expansion of training places to match the demand. Dr Machesney said: “It’s a massive oversight of workforce planning.” Read the article in full in the i Paper online DAUK committee members are all volunteers and speak to the media about issues facing frontline doctors in their own time. Please support our work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.