Medical Schools Council

The origins of the Medical Schools Council dates back to 1947, when the Conference of Deans of Provincial Medical Schools was formed. In 1989, this merged with the Conference of Deans of London Medical Schools, and in 2006 the organisation changed its name to the Medical Schools Council.[2]

The Medical Schools Council is involved in aiding medical schools improve access for applicants with a broader range of backgrounds. In the late nineties, the Medical Schools Council (then CHMS) looked at admission data and concluded that men and people from ethnic minorities were suffering from discrimination when they applied to medical schools. It was noted that the gender variation may "reflect the fact that girls are doing better academically than boys in school."[3]

While men still currently outnumber women in the medical profession, the General Medical Council reported that the number of female doctors is continuously increasing. A 17% increase was also reported in the number of UK Graduate GPs who are Black and Minority Ethnic (BME).[4]

Medical schools have been criticized for failing to enroll enough students from lower-income backgrounds[5] with research showing that 80 percent of applications to medicine came from only 20 percent of schools.[6] It was also found that approximately half of all applicants came from private or grammar schools. In 2008, after the Tooke inquiry into Modernising Medical Careers, the Council were again asked to look at selection of medical school applicants.[7] Much of the Medical Schools Council's widening participation work was initiated as response to the 2012 report Fair Access to the Professions from the Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission. This report stated that

"…medicine lags behind other professions both in the focus and in the priority it accords to these issues. It has a long way to go when it comes to making access fairer, diversifying its workforce and raising social mobility."[8]

In July 2013 the "Selecting for Excellence" project began, which the Medical Schools Council had commissioned to widen participation in medicine and analyse the barriers for applicants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. [9] The report found that in the preceding three-year period, just under half of the schools and colleges in the UK did not provide any applicants to study medicine at British universities.[10] The final report launched with 68 recommendations which are currently being implemented in December 2014.[11] Medical schools were encouraged to do more to help disadvantaged students with their applications and preparations for admission tests.

In conjunction with National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), the Medical Schools Council planned to organise for volunteers from the medical profession to visit pupils at the country's 18,000 primary schools during October 2015.[12] The campaign was entitled "Who's in Heath?"[13] and included the participation of the Chief Medical Officers of Scotland[14] and Wales.[15] However, there were some criticisms that primary children were too young to be introduced to medicine and instead the focus should be on the years closer to applying to university.[16]

The Medical Schools Council plays a role in coordinating medical schools as they develop assessments. Much of the Council's assessment work is now carried out through MSC Assessment, formed in 2014.[17]

Data analysed by the House of Commons library has shown that demand for General Practitioners in the UK is increasing, while the number of actual GP's is drastically falling.[35] The British Medical Association has said that GP surgeries are at "breaking point." In October 2014, Maureen Baker, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) announced that she was to attend a meeting with the Medical Schools Council, to look at why some medical schools appeared to have a ‘toxic anti-GP culture’.[36] To combat this, the Medical Schools Council is working with the RCGP to promote general practice careers and said that its members have made a "commitment to articulate the importance of general practice to students."[37]

The membership of the Medical Schools Council consists of UK medical schools. The Council has 42 members, of which 41 represent undergraduate medical schools and one represents a post-graduate only medical school.[38] The chief executive is Katie Petty-Saphon. The current co-chairs, appointed in August 2019, are Professor John Atherton, Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham School of Medicine and Professor Malcolm Reed, Dean of Brighton and Sussex Medical School.[39]

It has headquarters in Woburn House, London. Each medical school pays a yearly subscription to be part of the Medical Schools Council.[40] In 2015 it had an income of around £1 million.[41]

In 2015, it took part in a review, along with Dental Schools Council to try to improve equality and diversity across its own organisation.[42]

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