Unprecedented figures of overseas-trained doctors are quitting the UK, leaving the NHS at danger of significant shortages in its workforce, with hostility towards migrants being blamed for the departure.
Significant Rise in Departures
In all, 4,880 doctors who qualified in overseas left the UK during 2024 – a increase of 26% on the 3,869 who did so the year before – data from the General Medical Council reveal.
Healthcare executives, experienced physicians and the GMC cautioned that growing criticism of and abuse directed at migrants in the UK was a significant factor for the increase in overseas doctors leaving.
Sector Executives Voice Concern
“It’s extremely concerning that so many well-trained and much appreciated international doctors the NHS just can’t afford to lose are departing in their large numbers,” said Daniel Elkeles.
“We wouldn’t have an NHS if we hadn’t for many years brought in talented and valued individuals from overseas. The variety of the NHS staff is one of its biggest assets.”
Dr Amit Kochhar said: “Physicians who trained overseas have for many years made up a significant portion of the NHS workforce, and healthcare in the UK would have already collapsed without them.”
“But as we alerted recently, a sustained trend of hostile language is causing many doctors with a international background questioning if it is worth staying.”
Government and Oversight Response
The health secretary expressed concern recently that NHS employees were suffering the impact of a return to historical discrimination in Britain where it is “tolerated to be racist”.
The rise in overseas doctors leaving occurred alongside a levelling-off in the number coming to work in Britain, the medical regulator’s annual report on the state of doctor training and work in the UK for 2024 indicated.
Staffing Data and Patterns
- The 20,060 who joined the UK physician database last year were only a few more than the 19,629 who did so in 2023.
- This represented the lowest increase since 2020.
- The GMC’s results have raised concern because the NHS is so strongly dependent on doctors from elsewhere – 42% of its whole medical workforce qualified overseas.
“Internationally qualified physicians who have historically chosen to work in the UK could very possibly choose to depart if they believe they have limited career advancement here, or if the country seems unfriendly,” said Charlie Massey.
“Any intensification of discourse and decline of support could damage the UK’s image as a place the brightest and the best from all over the world would want to work.”
Job Difficulties and Government Effects
The plateauing in overseas physicians coming to the UK may be because such medics are having difficulty to secure employment, the GMC said.
- Just 12.5% who joined the register in the UK last year “found a designated body” – ie, secured a position within the NHS – within six months.
- That was down on the 20% who did so in 2023 and one in four in 2022.
The shortage in places available for junior physicians to begin specializing in their selected specialty has prompted the authorities to assign a greater share of them to UK-trained medics.
But the GMC’s analysis warns ministers that that approach, allied to the challenge of securing a job, may be misguided by discouraging overseas doctors from moving to the UK.
“It is crucial that workforce policies throughout all four [UK] countries do not inadvertently demoralise or drive out the talent on which our health services depend”, wrote Massey and the regulatory head.
