'Scandal' of UK's top A-level pupils 'forced abroad to study medicine'

HUNDREDS of students achieving top A-level grades are having to go abroad to study medicine because of the restrictive cap on places at British universities.

- By Matthew Davis

Campaigners have called on the Government to scrap the limit on medical schools at a time when the NHS must recruit doctors and nurses from overseas to plug workforce gaps.

The shortage of home-grown doctors has seen the health service take medics from some of the poorest countries in the world, where they are desperately needed. And it has been branded “a national scandal”.

Official records show Bulgaria is now the top choice for some of our brightest students to train.

The eastern European country appealed due to its English language schools and cheaper living costs compared with the UK.

Department for Education figures show that in the past five years 1,675 students who got at least three A* grades in their A-levels were rejected by UK medical schools.

Last year, one in six candidates who got this clean sweep of top grades did not get places.