National Training Survey
From 27th July, you can find out the results of the 2021 national training survey.
Your responses will help us make sure you and your colleagues get the experiences and support you need and deserve during your training. And they'll be a key source for us, education bodies and employers to support training to recover from the pandemic.
Thank you for filling in this year's survey, particularly at this time of huge challenge. There's an overview of the results in the next section of this email.
Read a summary of key findings or find your organisation or specialty results
What you told us - your progression and wellbeing
With over 63,000 responses, the survey gives us the most complete picture so far of how the pandemic has impacted your training, wellbeing and workload. While the standard of training remains high, burnout has increased to the highest level since we started asking these questions in 2018. Many of you also highlighted concerns about opportunities to gain the required competencies for your training.
Almost nine in ten trainees described their clinical supervision as good or very good. And three quarters of you said that virtual learning environments were being used effectively to support your training.
A third of you told us you felt burnt out or very burnt out as a result of your work. This is up from a quarter of trainees last year. 44% of you said you felt emotionally exhausted to a high or very high degree as a result of your work.
Eight out of ten trainees were confident they'd be able to progress to the next stage of training. However, 31% of you felt you haven't been able to compensate for lost opportunities through transferable skills from other aspects of your training.
How your answers influence change
As we work through the pandemic, doctors' wellbeing must be central to service and training recovery. We'll continue to do everything we can to speak up about why that's essential for training progression, for the future of the medical workforce and for patient care.
Your responses help us work with others to tackle local and UK-wide issues to improve training:
Along with postgraduate deans, employers and royal colleges, we'll use the data to resolve problems at individual workplaces and share good practice across the UK. Watch our video from when we launched this year's survey to learn more about how we do this.
We'll continue to join with royal colleges and education bodies to help trainees catch up on competencies that might have been missed due to the pandemic.
We're working with employers and education bodies to create training environments which are more supportive, inclusive and fair for all. This includes the targets we've set ourselves to eliminate discrimination, disadvantage and unfairness in medical education and training by 2031. Your survey responses help us measure change and pinpoint where we need to drive improvements.
Thanks once again for the extraordinary professionalism you have shown throughout the past year.
Kind regards,
Professor Colin Melville
Twitter: @drcolinm
GMC no: 2806806
Medical Director and Director of Education and Standards
General Medical Council
