On the 4th August, it was announced that there are plans afoot for the development of a new, private medical school between the three Manchester-based universites, including the University of Salford. Mustapha Jelili, USSU's Science and Technology Officer, offers his thoughts.

Currently, the world is plagued with emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and non-infectious disease which makes lives uncomfortable for individuals and also places burden on the economy of various countries in the world. To tackle this menace, there is need to invest in manpower in the form of training new medical and health professionals and also upgrade and standardize the skills of the existing professionals.

Recently, the Vice Chancellor informed staff and students of the proposed new Medical School which is a partnership between the three Universities in Manchester (University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Salford). For me as a medical professional, this is a good development in getting more trained professionals into the NHS which is currently witnessing shortage of physicians available to treat patients.

MBChB/MBBS (Medicine and Surgery) is a five-year’ course which involves training in both pre-clinical and clinical skills. The pre-clinical are more theoretical or classroom-based while the clinical are hospital and community-based. However, recruiting students onto this course might be a daunting task in the face of the unstable immigration policies targeted at international students and the Teaching Education Framework proposed by the Tory government which if passed will make Home/EU students, most especially disadvantaged students, to accumulate debts that they will have to pay for the rest of their lives all in the name of tuition fees.

As it is perceived that Medicine is for the rich, no wonder why the newly inducted physicians are not willing to work in rural areas which are more in need of medical services. To overcome this, there is need to recruit a diverse range of students onto the course. But how will this be achieved in the face of an anticipated costly tuition fee? UK/EU students’ tuition fees have been capped at £9000 except in a few top-rated schools while international students do not fancy the UK as an education destination anymore because of the UK’s immigration policies.

Will the management of the three universities make provision for bursaries and grants?

Will the bursaries be available to international students?

If bursaries are made available to Home/EU students as it is done for some courses in different UK universities, will the trained physician be ready to serve in rural areas and low-resourced communities? In addition, the University of Lancaster MBChB program is open to only international students with tuition fees of around £28,000 to £35,000 per academic session amounting to approximately £180,000 on completion of the program. How many students can afford this fee and upon completion decide to go to less-privileged areas to work?

Also, since the existing facilities at Central Manchester Foundation Trust (CMFT) are already fully utilized by students at the University of Manchester for training, what measures will be put in place to train the prospective students at the medical school? Are the three universities proposing to build hospitals or fortify the resources available at CMFT and Salford Royal Hospital? Only the management could answer these questions.

I think the government and University management’s priorities are for profit and not to help and improve the health and well-being of people. With this, the poor will continue to suffer from preventable and treatable diseases while the rich will not care about policies surrounding healthcare since it is affordable and available to them at any particular point in time.

In conclusion, I am of the opinion that the management of the three universities should look into how this development could benefit a diverse range of people, NHS, and the world at large.

If you would like to share your thoughts with Mustapha on this article you can contact him at ussu-vpst@salford.ac.uk