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Modernising Medical Careers

I want to make a little more progress before I give way again. The first part of the new system—the two-year foundation programme—was successfully introduced in 2005. In line with the principles that will operate throughout modernising medical careers, that will give every medical graduate a series of properly supervised placements in medicine, surgery and a range of other specialties and settings, with formal training based on a national curriculum developed following wide consultation with the profession, including the medical royal colleges, and approved by the Postgraduate Medical Education Board. It will also provide our medical graduates with regular workplace-based assessments of competence, a national learning portfolio and formal access to careers advice, all of which were missing from the old system.