New Lincoln Medical School opens in a bid to tackle medical staff shortage

A new medical school has been completed in Lincoln which health leaders in Lincolnshire say could be crucial in tackling recruitment challenges in the county.

There are currently 300 nurse vacancies and 200 doctor vacancies being filled by temporary staff in Lincolnshire, according to the Medical Director of United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

Lincolnshire is currently the largest county in the country without the ability to train its own doctors, leading to difficulties in attracting and retaining medical staff - it's hoped that the new school will fix this issue.

The school will have state of the art facilities. Credit: ITV News

Professor Danny McLaughlin, Associate Dean of Medicine at the University of Lincoln said: "Up to about 40% of doctors who are working in a region will actually train in that region and went to medical school in that region. 

"So having a medical school in Lincolnshire I would think can only be positive for the recruitment of doctors to the area.

"But I think the biggest impact people are going to see is when they see an improvement in health indices in Lincoln and Lincolnshire as a result of our medical students becoming doctors remaining in the region and improving the health of the population so I hope people feel excited about it."

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Shumile Chishty will graduate from the medical school in 2026, he says that the city has won him around."I can see myself staying in Lincoln," he said.

"First of all, apart from the medical school and the University of Lincoln itself it's a very small area so going about, walking about and you know the people.

"I think it's just a very homely environment sot that's just down to personal preference I like walking about and going to different places and seeing like the cathedral, very very nice views such as the Brayford Lake as well."

The shortage in medical staff was the original reason for the overnight closure of Grantham's A&E department in 2016.

The twenty-one million-pound facility has purpose-built laboratories, clinical and anatomy suites

280 medical students will begin studying in October with the eventual number growing to 440.