Unprecedented numbers of internationally qualified doctors are quitting the UK, leaving the NHS at danger of huge shortages in its workforce, with hostility towards foreign workers being blamed for the departure.
Significant Increase in Exits
In all, 4,880 physicians who trained in another country departed from the UK during 2024 – a rise of 26% on the 3,869 who did so the year before – data from the General Medical Council reveal.
NHS leaders, experienced physicians and the GMC cautioned that increased criticism of and abuse directed at international staff in the UK was a significant factor for the rise in overseas doctors leaving.
Industry Executives Express Concern
“It’s extremely concerning that so many highly skilled and much appreciated international doctors the NHS just cannot do without are departing in their droves,” said Daniel Elkeles.
“We wouldn’t have an NHS if we had not for many years recruited talented and appreciated people from all around the world. The diversity of the NHS staff is one of its biggest strengths.”
A senior medical representative stated: “Physicians who trained overseas have long constituted a substantial sector of the NHS workforce, and healthcare in the UK would have already withered away without them.”
“But as we warned recently, a sustained campaign of anti-migrant language is causing many doctors with a migrant background considering if it is valuable to remain.”
Government and Regulatory Reaction
Wes Streeting expressed concern recently that NHS employees were suffering the impact of a return to 1970s and 1980s-style racism in Britain where it is “tolerated to be prejudiced”.
The rise in overseas doctors quitting coincided with a stabilization in the number coming to work in Britain, the GMC’s annual report on the condition of doctor training and work in the UK for 2024 showed.
Staffing Statistics and Trends
- Over twenty thousand who joined the UK medical register last year were just slightly higher than the 19,629 who did so in 2023.
- This represented the smallest increase since 2020.
- The GMC’s results have caused alarm because the NHS is so heavily reliant on doctors from elsewhere – 42% of its entire medical workforce trained internationally.
“Internationally qualified physicians who have traditionally chosen to work in the UK could quite conceivably decide to depart if they believe they have limited career advancement here, or if the nation seems unfriendly,” stated Charlie Massey.
“Any intensification of discourse and decline of support could damage the UK’s reputation as somewhere the most talented individuals from all over the world would want to work.”
Job Difficulties and Policy Effects
The stagnation in overseas physicians arriving to the UK may be because such medics are finding it harder to secure employment, the GMC explained.
- Only one in eight who became registered in the UK last year “found a NHS post” – that is, got a position within the NHS – within six months.
- That was lower on the 20% who did so in 2023 and one in four in 2022.
The shortage in positions available for junior physicians to start specializing in their selected medical specialism has prompted the authorities to allocate a greater share of them to domestically qualified doctors.
But the GMC’s analysis alerts ministers that that approach, combined with the challenge of finding a job, may prove misguided by discouraging overseas doctors from moving to the UK.
“It is vital that staffing plans across all four [UK] nations do not inadvertently discourage or push away the skilled professionals on which our health services depend”, stated the GMC chief and the regulatory head.
