Responding to the Department of Health and Social Care's announcement that the government will fund an additional 350 medical school across the country this year, Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers said: 

"The implementation of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is significant and complex and comes at a challenging time for both the health service and the education sector. Profound immediate financial challenges risk stifling much needed expansion in staffing and education in many places.

"This announcement of a further phase of additional medical school places is therefore a significant step forward and NHS leaders will look forward to similar commitments for other professions and educational routes in the coming months.  

"At the same time the announcement of 600 extra medical school places in recent years is an important corrective to the apparent misunderstanding of medical trade unions when it comes to the far more modest expansion in smaller professions such as the physicians associate role.

"The acknowledgment in the plan of the need to counteract the historical bias in educational capacity in London was a long-standing ask of NHS employers. It is very positive therefore to see the considered and impactful approach being taken by NHS England and the Office for Students to ensure that most of these new places are in areas of the country that have been underserved for generations."