Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson and Metro Mayor of Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram have written to the Education Secretary requesting clarity and financial support for Higher Education institutions and students who have not secured their places for study this year.
The Mayors met with Higher Education bodies in the City Region this week and have written to Gavin Williamson asking urgently for:
· Information to students, universities, schools and colleges, on when and how they may expect results, and clarity on which students can gain entry to their choice of university.
· The cap for urgently needed medical and dental school places to be lifted for 2020 entry, allowing more students to take up places to read medicine and dentistry.
This is in line with a call by the Royal College of Physicians for a doubling of medical student places by 2029 and would both allow the UK to benefit from additional doctors as soon as possible and avoid the inevitable disadvantage to Year 12 students applying to medical courses for 2021 entry
The UK has fewer doctors per head of population than most other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and cities like Liverpool, already coping with significant unmet health needs and health inequality, will be the first to benefit from this levelling up.
