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Adrienne Slater, 22, is a fourth-year medical student at Nottingham University. She went to a state school and is coordinator of the widening access to medical school scheme at Nottingham Medical School.

She said: "Nottingham has a lot of students from private schools, the upper classes and from families with parents who are medics.

There seemed to be a need to widen access.

"I didn't have much help from my school. But my mother is a teacher and she was able to find me work experience through the parents of pupils.

"At Nottingham, we are trying to organise work experience (for those without a background in medicine) because at interview they only ask about work experience.

"Doctors are meant to be understanding. We need a variety of people to become doctors and to encourage people from the lower classes because that's who doctors deal with all the time. We need a mix of people: medicine cannot be the preserve of the upper classes."