Medical schools believe that individuals with the potential to make a good doctor should be given the opportunity to do so, regardless of their background. We must seek talent from a wide and diverse pool, and discussions on how to make the profession more accessible are important and welcomed. However, the headline of your recent article, which focused on class rather than socioeconomic status, is misleading (Only 5% of UK medical school entrants are working class, data shows, 27 February).
The Sutton Trust study mentioned uses a simplified national statistics socioeconomic classification method to determine an applicant’s class, based on their parents’ occupation. This approach places a social worker and barrister in the same category without any reference to the salary they receive. More context is needed, a fact recognised by Ucas, which stopped collecting household occupation data as an indicator of socioeconomic classification in 2021.
While parental occupation undoubtedly affects an applicant’s ability to access resources for a successful medical school application, broad descriptors of class fail to capture the full picture. Such generalisations can harm a young person’s aspirations and ability to see themselves as a future doctor. A more accurate tool for understanding an applicant’s background is indices of multiple deprivation, which consider several factors that contribute to socioeconomic deprivation – for example, health, school performance and living conditions.
Medical schools are working hard to increase the representation of disadvantaged students, with a goal of 33% of students from disadvantaged backgrounds by 2032 – around 6,000 students annually. Achieving this target requires sector-wide collaboration, and it is crucial that the nuances of widening participation are properly communicated, both in efforts to address the issue and in the broader public discourse.
Dr Katie Petty-Saphon
CEO, Medical Schools Council
• I grew up in Knowsley, Merseyside, in a single-parent household, but despite a tough working-class start, I passed the 11-plus exam, which was to become the gateway to another world. Aged 16, with good O-level grades, I asked my then GP for advice on how to apply to medical school. He informed me that people from my environment didn’t go to university. This was in 1977, and it seems that attitudes in university selection panels have made little progress.
I did go to university and became a reasonably good GP. I worked hard for an appreciative rural population and I was well liked. The current application system to, and the cost of, medical school means that I would have no chance of success if I were to apply now. The most important attribute I had from early on in my career was resilience, an essential quality for workers in the modern NHS.
My concern is that medical schools in the 21st century fail to select candidates who show signs of such an attribute. Perhaps candidates from working-class backgrounds would be more likely to display these qualities and go some way to remedying the atrocious retention problem we have in the NHS. In large part this is due to the recruitment of high-graders, groomed by parents and schools for medical degrees, who don’t have and will never have the qualities required to tough it out in a very demanding career.
Dr Carl Darby
Storth, Cumbria
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