Medical students are also placed in General Practice across the counties of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire.

The medical school is ranked third in the United Kingdom by The Guardian and The Sunday Times.

[2] Within the United Kingdom the medical school is ranked second only to Oxford and ahead of Cambridge by The Guardian and The Sunday Times.

It recommended that new medical schools should be immediately established at the universities of Nottingham, Southampton and Leicester.

North Staffordshire was deemed a very good site as it had a growing local population and several large hospitals.

However, 150 students a year would be required to make it economically and educationally viable and thus the scheme was postponed.

In January 2012 it was announced that the General Medical Council (GMC) had approved and registered the new five-year undergraduate curriculum.

A small number of graduate entry places are available for year two of the course and there is a six-year option for applicants with non-science qualifications.

Clinical teaching, years 3–5, takes place at the Royal Stoke University Hospital site, in Hartshill.

[7] A £2.2m extension to the medical school to accommodate the Research Institute for Primary Care Health Sciences (iPCHS) is scheduled for completion in November 2016 [8] An additional £21m medical research facility (including new laboratories) originally scheduled for completion in Stoke-on-Trent will be constructed on the Keele campus instead.

[2] Within the United Kingdom the medical school is ranked second only to Oxford and ahead of Cambridge by The Guardian and The Sunday Times .