Only young people from the most affluent backgrounds can consider joining the medical profession, a government report into social mobility claims.
Former health minister Alan Milburn, chair of a study on widening access to high-status jobs, said professions - like medicine, law and journalism - have become more, not less, socially exclusive over time.
The wide-ranging study, Fair Access to the Professions, by an independent panel of experts, calls for more equal opportunities in education and employment.
It claims that a typical doctor born in 1970 grew up in a family with an income 63% above that of the average family; today, this now equates to growing up in a family that is richer than five in six of all families in the UK.
One of the study’s key proposals is to recruit university students from a wider range of social backgrounds, with tuition fees being waived for students living at home.
The BMA, however, rejected the idea that this would have a substantial impact - with too few students living close enough to medical schools.
Tim Crocker-Buque, chairman of the BMA’s Medical Student Committee, said: “Ministers have no hope of addressing this poor level of participation without examining the crippling and increasing costs of medical education.
“The Panel has been undermined from its inception by the government’s refusal to allow it to examine fully two of the main barriers blocking wider access to medicine - debt and tuition fees.”
The union estimates that just 4% of medical students currently come from the lowest two socio-economic groups and future generations of doctors face an average graduation debt of £37,000.
Other recommendations of Fair Access to the Professions include: higher education being more widely available in further education colleges; universities becoming more involved in schools, such as by having representatives on boards of governors; professions and universities publishing more details on the social background of their intake; and, better careers advice to raise pupils’ aspirations.
Richard Marks, head of policy of Remedy, said: “This is an unashamedly political report, explicitly motivated by the desire to bring about social change.
“Medicine requires individuals who are natural leaders with self-confidence, drive and ambition, prepared to make significant personal sacrifices to further their studies. Our profession can only thrive if we select doctors showing these personal skills. These traits are developed by their school and family upbringing.”
The study suggests that some professions - like law and politics - are becoming less dominated by people from private school, but others like medicine remain the same.
It does acknowledge, however, that diversity has improved, with one in four of all medical school applications and acceptances in 2007 being from ethnic minority backgrounds. Furthermore, women make up 57% of both applications to, and acceptances by, medical school.
The Prime Minister, who commissioned the report, said he will give the findings serious consideration.
Tags: Alan Milburn, Recruitment, Tuition fees
It’s shameful that after 12 years of a labour government we are in an even more divided and financially unequal society than under the Tories. If that’s what the government wants to change then I’m all for it, but I’ll believe it when I see it!. It’s essential that medicine is opened up to the less well-off - the fees must be reduced substantially for poorer students. There are plenty of good state-school pupils from non-medical families with “self-confidence, drive and ambition” who wish to do medicine but are put off, either by the fees, or the elitest image we still have. Also it’s much easier to get the work experience necessary for the CV if you know the “right” people - we still have 6th formers coming into work with colleagues to “get experience” and every single one of them recently has been from a private school.
“There are plenty of good state-school pupils from non-medical families with self-confidence, drive and ambition”, you’re right. Unfortunately most of them want to get onto a reality TV show instead of spending 5 years plus getting into debt, with no promise of a job at the end of it anymore…
The number of children going to private school has increased by 30% under the Labour government. Kids from poorer backgrounds are going to have jump a long queue…
I don’t think the Milburn Report has much credibility. Tuition fees are obviously the biggest barrier and that wasn’t even allowed to be part of the remit of the report. It’s a bunch of New Labour cronies looking to apportion blame onto the professions rather than looking at the success of their own policies.
Wonder which comprehensive Tim Crocker-Buque attended? Bit harsh maybe. At least, he’s fighting for the little man.
So “medicine is becoming socially more exclusive”? What’s the problem? The punters want the best medical treatment dont they? Does anyone seriously think a sick person gives a damn whether their doctor comes from the higher or the lower echelons of society? What they want is a bright, well educated doctor. Its only socialist nerds, and look what THEY’Ve done to the NHS, who prattle on with this mantra that the lower classes need to be involved in medical care. Does anyone ask whether engineers, or architects, or nurses, or dustmen come from the full social spectrum? I think not. And if the government is really concerned about this, then let them spend the money on properly educating those it suggests are missing out on being doctors.
the problem, Dr Pragmatist, is one of equality and fairness. And remember what a complete mess the NHS was before 1997, if you can remember that far back? 18 months wait for a hip replacement and desperate understaffing - long before your “socialist nerds” got a look in.
No, the patients don’t care what social stratum their doctor comes from - but they do want a good doctor who they can communciate with, and that may not always mean someone who went to private school or whose father was a neurosurgeon. THey may (horrors!) also fancy their own children having an opportunity to be doctors and joining the band of the well-off who can afford private schools if they wish, large cars and expensive houses.
This is not an argument about the medical profession alone but about reducing inequality in our society by opening up long expensive courses to people from all backgrounds based on ability and not connections or money. Ultimately that will work to the advantage of all.