Recommendation F163: Safe staff numbers and skills
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
The General Medical Council's system of reviewing the acceptability of the provision of training by healthcare providers must include a review of the sufficiency of the numbers and skills of available staff for the provision of training and to ensure patient safety in the course of training.
In brief (written by this site)
In commentary provided in September 2024, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England recorded the recommendation as implemented and closed, noting that the General Medical Council published standards for medical education and training in July 2015 (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Previously, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team reported in May 2024 that these standards, effective from January 2016, required healthcare organisations to maintain enough suitably qualified staff for patient safety and appropriate clinical supervision (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’s standards for training includes (at Domain 8) educational resources and capacity and provides that there must be a suitable ratio of trainers to trainees. The General Medical Council has made it clear that it will use its Review of Quality Assurance in Education to consider whether the standard should be more specific while allowing necessary scope for local flexibility.
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 completed (27 February 2026)
The Thirlwall Inquiry has noted action taken by the GMC following the conclusion of the Inquiry.
GMC published standards for medical education and training in July 2015 (see R.1.7 of the published standards)..
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 – Closed”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 163, PDF page 504.
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 support for learning and training, ensuring that each doctor in training has dedicated support to acquire the necessary skills and experience, personal support and time to learn. These themes aim to be more specific than the current domains. A new standards framework was launched for consultation in January 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 new standards for medical education and training in July 2015, which came into effect in January 2016. R.6 provided “Organisations must make sure there are enough staff members who are suitably qualified, so that learners have appropriate clinical supervision, working patterns and workload, for patients to receive care that is safe and of a good standard.”
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. 163, PDF page 470.
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