Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 4 October 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider extending the ScotGEM bursary to cover all medical students in Scotland.
ScotGEM students are very specifically entitled to apply for a £4,000 per year ‘return of service’ bursary. This means for every year they take this they are committing to stay and work in NHS Scotland for a corresponding amount of years. Once the first cohort of ScotGEM students graduate in Summer 2022, we intend to evaluate the effectiveness of the ScotGEM bursary in retaining trainee doctors in hard to fill posts within our healthcare service. Further consideration to any extension can be made at that point.