[7] Much of the Medical Schools Council's widening participation work was initiated as response to the 2012 report Fair Access to the Professions from the Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission.
"[8] In July 2013 the "Selecting for Excellence" project began, which the Medical Schools Council had commissioned to widen participation in medicine and analyse the barriers for applicants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
[9] The report found that in the preceding three-year period, just under half of the schools and colleges in the UK did not provide any applicants to study medicine at British universities.
[15] However, there were some criticisms that primary children were too young to be introduced to medicine and instead the focus should be on the years closer to applying to university.
[18] After considering evidence the project group decided to pilot two new selection methods: Educational Performance Measure and a situational judgement test.
[19] The Situational Judgement Test is a multiple-choice assessment of aptitude for employment and professional attributes as they relate to medicine.
[20] Following pilots, both Educational Performance Measure and Situational Judgement Test now form the entry into the Foundation Programme.
[21] Along with the UK Foundation Programme Office, the Medical Schools Council continues to administer the Situational Judgement Test through MSC Assessment.
[24] It was initiated as a response to a General Medical Council sponsored study in 2009 which found that 9% of hospital prescriptions contain errors.
[32] Fitness to practise procedures are the mechanism through which medical schools address concerns about a student's professionalism rather than their academic performance.
[34] Data analysed by the House of Commons library has shown that demand for General Practitioners in the UK is increasing, while the number of actual GP's is drastically falling.
The current co-chairs, appointed in August 2019, are Professor John Atherton, Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham School of Medicine and Professor Malcolm Reed, Dean of Brighton and Sussex Medical School.