In response to a General Medical Council report about the medical workforce and doctors’ rapidly changing career choices, Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said:

"Adapting to a desire for greater flexibility for doctors in their training and career paths is a key part of efforts by the NHS to retain its skilled and talented people and to improve the wellbeing of the workforce – which leads to better care and outcomes for patients.

"Trusts are committed to helping medical staff and others’ careers to flourish amid the pressures, particularly in urgent and emergency care, faced by the NHS workforce today.

"The government-commissioned Messenger Review recognised, for example, the importance of training and development to find the clinical leaders of the future.

"With more black and Asian doctors as well as more recruits from abroad in recent years, the increasing diversity of the NHS medical workforce is welcome. Leaders of health services know, however, that there is always more to do to tackle inequalities and discrimination – a priority for trusts – in the workplace.

"And with more than 125,000 unfilled jobs across the NHS in England today, everything that we can do to retain and develop valued doctors and other staff is crucial to the long-term health and wellbeing of the NHS, its workforce and patients."