Health education funding

We limit the number of students on pre-registration medical and dental courses that we will count towards our funding allocations.

These limits recognise the very high cost of training for doctors and dentists and help ensure that unplanned growth on these courses does not divert OfS funding away from other priority activities and courses. They also support workforce planning in the NHS, enabling consistency between the numbers graduating and the number of foundation programme training places available.

Expansion of maximum fundable medical places for 2025-26

On 14 December 2023, we received a letter from the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education and the Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, providing us with sufficient additional funding to increase the maximum fundable limits for home students by 350 medical training places for the academic year 2025-26.

This followed a similar process that was run to increase maximum fundable limits for home students by 205 medical training places for the academic year 2024-25 as part of plans set out in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.

After consideration and engagement with the higher education sector, we have allocated these places regionally on a pro rata basis to universities who indicated that they could expand for the academic year 2025-26. Full details of this process and the outcome can be found in a letter sent to relevant universities to confirm final allocations. These additional 350 places will be included in the maximum intake figures for the academic year 2025-26 when published. 

For entry in 2024-25

The expected maximum intake shows the overall limit on the numbers that we will count for funding purposes, assuming all recruitment is of OfS-fundable students. These figures include the additional places that were allocated to five universities following an expansion exercise for the academic year 2024-25.

We monitor each provider’s recruitment against these maximum fundable limits, using a rolling five-year average. If a provider over-recruits against its maximum fundable limit, we will apply a reduction to the student numbers counted for OfS funding purposes for the following year.

Some providers in the table may choose to use a portion of their expected maximum intake to recruit overseas students. (Providers do not receive any OfS funding for these international students.) Typically, these are providers with more established medical schools. Recent expansions to the expected maximum intakes have allocated places on the basis that they should be used to recruit home students.

Expansion of maximum fundable medical places for 2024-25

On 30 June 2023, the NHS published its Long Term Workforce Plan, which announced a planned increase in undergraduate student numbers for medicine and dentistry courses. The plan sets out proposed trajectories for growth in the number of doctors, dentists, nurses and other health professionals.

On 1 October 2023, we received a letter from the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education and the Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, providing us with sufficient additional funding to increase the maximum fundable limits for home students by 205 medical training places for the academic year 2024-25.

After consideration and engagement with the higher education sector, we allocated these additional places to five universities:

Archive

For previous years, see the UK government web archive:

• 2021-22 target intakes
• 2020-21: intake targets were removed for this academic year. See the press release from the Department for Education on Gov.uk.
• 2019-20 target intakes
• 2018-19 target intakes.