My Lords, many years ago when I was chairman of the General Medical Council’s education committee before I became its president, I received in the course of two months 32 letters each demanding that the special interest groups that wrote to me should have their conditions and concerns included in the undergraduate medical curriculum. Does the Minister accept that the range of medical knowledge is now so vast that basic medical education over five or six years does no more than simply enable graduates in medicine to benefit from postgraduate or vocational training having acquired skills and knowledge in principle which will help them to do that? Can he assure us that this extremely important matter raised by my noble friend now figures in postgraduate training of doctors, and not least in the mandatory vocational training programme of three years which must be undertaken by all intending general practitioners?

My Lords, many years ago when I was chairman of the General Medical Council’s education committee before I became its president, I received in the course of two months 32 letters each demanding that the special interest groups that wrote to me should have their conditions and concerns included in the undergraduate medical curriculum. Does the Minister accept that the range of medical knowledge is now so vast that basic medical education over five or six years does no more than simply enable graduates in medicine to benefit from postgraduate or vocational training having acquired skills and knowledge in principle which will help them to do that? Can he assure us that this extremely important matter raised by my noble friend now figures in postgraduate training of doctors, and not least in the mandatory vocational training programme of three years which must be undertaken by all intending general practitioners?