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NHS Education for Scotland

A skilled and sustainable workforce for a healthier Scotland

Medicine

Medicine image

Our primary responsibility is the education and training of doctors in Scotland.

We are also responsible for the appraisal and revalidation of all doctors in Scotland as well as a number of cross-cutting and multi-professional programmes, including patient safety, quality improvement of patient care and the development of Scotland’s remote and rural workforce.

Our overarching aim is to deliver first-class medical education and training for Scotland to ensure safe, effective care for patients, both now and in the future.

Working with all our partners, we aim to achieve this by:

  • Organising and providing excellent training programmes that attract high quality doctors to Scotland.
  • Meeting and exceeding all regulatory standards through consistent application of best practice and the principles of continual improvement.
  • Supporting the ongoing educational and training of Scotland’s trained doctors, together with those who support their work.

Doctors in training

Most of our focus is on the training of Scotland’s 6000 postgraduate trainee doctors who deliver care every day while in hospitals and general practices within NHS Scotland. We oversee this training, making sure it meets the regulatory standards of the GMC and that trainees make the right progress.

Undergraduate medical education and training

Through distribution of Additional Cost of Teaching (ACT) funding, we support the undergraduate medical education and training delivered by Scotland’s 5 medical schools: making sure significant resources are used properly to underpin the clinical teaching of medical students in hospitals and general practices.

Continuing development of doctors

The continuing development of doctors is another key task and we support many educational and training initiatives for fully trained Consultants, General Practitioners and Associate Specialists.

Multiprofessional training schemes

Alongside this we lead on multiprofessional training schemes for pharmacists, general practice nurses and general practice managers, whilst having a pivotal role in relevant research through our involvement in the Scottish Medical Education Research Consoland 

The Scotland Deanery 

To find out more about what we do, visit the Scotland Deanery 

Scottish medical training (SMT)

To find out more about Foundation, GP and Specialty training visit Scottish medical training 


Last updated: 13/08/2020

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