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Just one per cent of medical students area from deprived areas

Northern Ireland has the lowest proportion of medical students from deprived areas in the UK.
Northern Ireland has the lowest proportion of medical students from deprived areas in the UK. Northern Ireland has the lowest proportion of medical students from deprived areas in the UK.

Northern Ireland has the lowest proportion of medical students from deprived areas, with just over one percent of those going on to study medicine from poorer background.

A study of more than 30,000 applications to 22 different medical schools found that one in three students accepted to study medicine from Northern Ireland were from an affluent background.

The inbalance is higher in Northern Ireland than any other part of the UK where on average a quarter of medical students come from the most-affluent backgrounds and just over three per cent of successful applications are from the most-deprived areas.

Researchers from Dundee University and Central Lancashire University found there is "no quick fix to widening participation, partly because gaining a place remains, rightly, largely determined by academic ability".

England had the highest rate of successful applicants from deprived areas, with 3.5 per cent of medical students from poorer families, and also the lowest proportion of students from the most affluent areas.

The research, looked at applicants' postcodes, the type of school they went to and their parents' occupations.

Professor Bruce Guthrie, of the University of Dundee Medical School, said: "Regardless of which measure you look at, those coming from less-affluent backgrounds are much less likely to apply to study medicine, and those that do apply are somewhat less likely to be offered a place at medical school.

"One of the major implications arising from our results is that they show that modifying selection processes is unlikely to have a major impact on widening participation because so few people from less-affluent backgrounds apply in the first place", he added.