Final year medical students from Swansea University will be joining NHS staff in the fight against Covid-19.

The General Medical Council is offering early provisional registration to students who wish to sign up to begin duties and help respond to the pandemic.

Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Head of Graduate Entry Medicine at Swansea University Medical School, said the students would be contacted individually by the GMC in the next week to invite them to apply for early pre-registration.

She said: “Swansea Medical School is proud of its excellent final year students, most of whom have already volunteered to work clinically in the NHS as medical student assistants. They are ready to graduate, having passed their final examinations on the Graduate Entry Medicine Programme.”

Participation is voluntary and is only being offered to students who have completed the requirements of the programme they are studying on, passed the relevant summative assessments and the mandatory components of the programme.

The new recruits taking up work in the NHS will become interim Foundation Y1 doctors (FY1), entering the two-year UK Foundation Programme which forms the bridge between medical school and specialist/general practice training, immediately. They will also be able to choose where they go to work.

Professor Hawthorne added: “We wish them all the best in their future careers as doctors and hope they will keep in touch with us.”