A thousand extra medical students are to be trained each year in the UK by the year 2005, the government has announced.

Health Secretary Frank Dobson said the 20% increase - equivalent to a new medical school - will be phased in over seven years.

By 2001, there will be 400 extra medical school places every year and by 2005 the full 1,000. This will bring the total starting training each year to 6,000.

The move is in addition to the 7,000 extra doctors announced last week as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement.

Commitment to the future

Doctors' leaders believe measures are required to retain existing staff

Mr Dobson, responding to a parliamentary question, said the announcement was further evidence of the government's commitment to invest in the long-term future of the NHS.

He said: "This is a substantial investment in the future of the health service. It will help to give the NHS the doctors it needs."

The increase will be staged so that facilities for medical education can be expanded in a "planned and orderly manner".

Most of the extra places are expected to be in England and Wales and will be in existing medical schools.

Expert recommendation

The announcement follows a recommendation by the Medical Workforce Standing Advisory Committee - which advises ministers on long-term NHS workforce planning - that the annual intake of medical students should be increased by 1,000.

Mr Dobson also announced that the government will be discussing the future shape of the NHS workforce with the medical profession.

The British Medical Association welcomed Mr Dobson's announcement.

However, doctors warned imaginative recruitment and retention measures were also needed, as well as new incentives for qualified doctors to return to practice.

BMA Council Chairman Dr Ian Bogle said: "Improving the NHS in the next century will depend on having more highly skilled doctors to deliver quality care.

"The government has taken a very important step in the right direction. The BMA believes we will need a new medical school and some imaginative new approaches to teaching to make this happen."

Full to capacity

Daniel Atkinson, Chairman of the BMA's Medical Students' Committee, warned that current medical schools were full to capacity and that there was a limit to the number of students any patient could be expected to see.

Dr Mark Porter, Chairman of the BMA's Junior Doctors Committee, said: "This is the decision we have been waiting for. It has been long delayed but it is very welcome, as without this boost we could not guarantee the future supply of doctors.

"Currently more than half our newly qualified doctors are from overseas and it seems morally wrong to continue to poach them from developing countries.

However, Dr Porter warned the announcement in isolation would not deliver the 7,000 extra doctors promised by Mr Dobson.

"To attract junior doctors with young families back into practice, we need to pay them decently and provide child care facilities which they can afford and which they can use around the clock."