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.