Recommendation F156: Medical training
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
The system for approving and accrediting training placement providers and programmes should be configured to apply the principles set out above.
In brief (written by this site)
In September 2024 commentary published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England recorded progress as ongoing, stating that actions in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan support their commitment to improving the quality of healthcare education and training (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Prior to this, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted in May 2024 that the General Medical Council published a new standards framework in July 2015, which came into effect in January 2016 (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
Accepted.
The General Medical Council are taking the response to this recommendation forward in detail through its Review of Quality Assurance in Education. The General Medical Council will share its proposals in the first half of 2014.
How this response relates to the recommendation
Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.
Delivery
DHSC and NHS England say in progress (27 February 2026)
Please see our response to recommendation 153 above.
The actions set out in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan support our commitment to improving the quality of healthcare education and training and reduce course leaving rates.
Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Implemented – Ongoing”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 156, PDF page 499.
Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (11 February 2015)
The General Medical Council is reviewing its standards of medical education and training, as set out in Tomorrow’s Doctors and The Trainee Doctor. The review will be developing themes which will replace the current domains outlined in the standards. One of those themes is learning environment and culture, ensuring that educational environments are safe for patients and safe for leaners. There have been a series of roundtable events this year with stakeholders to discuss each of these themes and there has been wide support for defining what a learning environment would look like. A new standards framework will be consulted on in early 2015.
Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.
Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to the General Medical Council, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on it.
What other bodies have found
In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.
Thirlwall Inquiry legal team (15 May 2024)
This recommendation was accepted by the Government.
The General Medical Council published a new standards framework in July 2015, which came into effect in January 2016.
Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review colours its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green, which it uses to mark evidence, identified by the legal team, that a recommendation has been clearly implemented. Table row: section 16.2 No. 156, PDF page 467.
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department of Health and Social Care
Response, delivery statement - DHSC and NHS England
Delivery statement - Thirlwall Inquiry legal team
Finding