Boards must justify any additional allocations received above their baseline budget and allocate this amount towards new spends within the allocation year. With the increase in student numbers the Medical ACT allocation to Health Boards has risen dramatically and with it there has been a sharp increase in the number of additional allocation proposals received by NES.

NES has developed standardised template for Boards to use when submitting bids, which will be implemented during 2022-23. This is designed to lead users via a series of questions, to provide all relevant details to support their request for funding. NES is hopeful that temporary solution will be in place for a limited period pending further conversations with NES Digital colleagues to produce a more streamlined solution for the longer term, which will incorporate additional functionality to underpin performance management of the Medical ACT budget

ScotGEM, the first graduate entry medical programme in Scotland enters its 5^th year in 2022/23 and is expected to produce its 2^nd cohort of graduates in Summer 2023.

Since the programme’s launch in 2018, Medical ACT funding provided by Scottish Government has come ring fenced to the Health Boards involved in the programme (Fife, Tayside, Dumfries and Galloway, Highland) rather than being allocated via the Medical ACT  model as is the case for other programmes, It is anticipated that the programme will transition to funding via the Allocation model during academic year 2023-24. In the meantime the NES Medical ACT team will continue to play a key role in guiding the transition process, along with Scottish Government, Health Board and University partners.

With the graduation of first cohort of ScotGEM students in Summer 2022, NES is beginning the task of identifying whether graduates have fulfilled the first part of their bursary conditions, by applying to and then accepting a place if offered, within Foundation programmes in Scotland. The Medical ACT team is indebted to colleagues in the Scottish Foundation School for their support in setting up a tracking system for this initial year; it is hoped that a fully automated digital system can be developed in due course, based on the experiences gained from this first year, which will be invaluable as numbers of graduates increase and graduates emerge from Foundation programmes and head towards specialty training.

The work of the three short life working groups identified how complex the workings of Medical ACT are and with the added implications of increasing student numbers and subsequent increase in funding it is felt there are some areas where further stakeholder engagement may be needed to identify the best way forward to support Health Boards deliver a high standard of Medical Education whilst maintaining the best use of Scottish Government funding.

In 2022-23 we hope to publish a document outlining the work of Medical ACT up to 2023-24 and begin discussions regarding the direction of the team going forward.

Please send any comments or queries to the Medical ACT Team mailbox: nes.medicalACT@nhs.scot