STAGGERING competition for doctors’ training posts has been a disaster “long in the making,” the BMA warned today.

New figures showed that competition for training posts to become psychiatrists more than doubled to 10,000 this year compared to 2024, with only 489 people gaining places.

Despite appointments in general surgeries across the country running scarce, there were five doctors applying for every GP training post, with just over 4,000 places and over 20,000 applications.

Although gynaecology has the largest waitlists for 18 to 64s, almost 5,000 doctors competed for 297 obstetrics and gynaecology posts.

BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said: “This has been a disaster long in the making as successive governments have failed to deliver enough training places to keep up with demand.

“The result will be more of what we have already seen: an ever larger cohort of doctors unemployed, stuck, or looking for the exits.

“The moment could not be more urgent for government to bring forward plans to alleviate the situation for UK graduates.”

The figures showed there were 8,841 applications for internal medicine training, the first step to becoming a consultant physician, for just 1,678 posts.

Dr Stephen Joseph, co-chairman of the Royal College of Physicians’ resident doctor committee, said the NHS is in an “absurd scenario” where “hospitals are short-staffed because there aren’t enough training posts.”

“Many resident doctors will now be left in limbo — stuck in non-training roles, potentially facing unemployment at the end of foundation training, unable to progress in the NHS training pathway and at high risk of leaving the profession altogether.”

“This represents a significant loss of investment for the health service.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We have already reformed GP funding to create an extra 2,000 GP roles and we’re creating 1,000 extra speciality training places over the next three years.

“We’re also prioritising UK medical graduates and other doctors who have worked in the NHS for a significant period for specialty training — all alongside providing the biggest pay rise for resident doctors in decades.”