🔗 Share this article

Record figures of internationally qualified physicians are quitting the UK, placing the National Health Service at danger of significant shortages in its workforce, with hostility towards foreign workers being cited for the departure.

Significant Increase in Departures

In all, 4,880 doctors who trained in another country left the UK during 2024 – a increase of 26% on the 3,869 who did so the year before – data from the medical regulator reveal.

NHS leaders, senior doctors and the GMC warned that growing criticism of and abuse directed at migrants in the UK was a significant reason for the rise in overseas doctors departing.

Industry Leaders Express Worry

“It’s really concerning that so many highly skilled and highly valued overseas physicians the NHS just can’t afford to lose are departing in their droves,” said Daniel Elkeles.

“We wouldn’t have an NHS if we had not for many years recruited skilled and appreciated people from all around the world. The variety of the NHS staff is one of its biggest strengths.”

Dr Amit Kochhar said: “Physicians who trained overseas have for many years constituted a significant portion of the NHS staff, and healthcare in the UK would have already withered away without them.”

“But as we warned recently, a ongoing campaign of hostile language is leaving many doctors with a migrant background considering if it is valuable to remain.”

Political and Regulatory Reaction

Wes Streeting expressed concern recently that NHS staff were bearing the brunt of a resurgence to historical discrimination in Britain where it is “tolerated to be prejudiced”.

The increase in overseas doctors leaving occurred alongside a levelling-off in the figure arriving to work in Britain, the medical regulator’s annual report on the condition of medical education and practice in the UK for 2024 showed.

Staffing Statistics and Patterns

• Over twenty thousand who entered the UK physician database last year were just slightly higher than the 19,629 who did so in 2023.
• This formed the lowest growth since 2020.
• The GMC’s results have caused alarm because the NHS is so heavily dependent on doctors from elsewhere – 42% of its entire doctor staff trained internationally.

“Overseas-trained doctors who have traditionally chosen to work in the UK could very possibly decide to depart if they feel they have no future job progression here, or if the country feels unfriendly,” said the GMC’s chief executive.

“Any hardening of rhetoric and decline of support could undermine 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 stagnation in foreign doctors coming to the UK may be because such doctors are finding it harder to get a job, the GMC said.

1. Only one in eight who joined the register in the UK in 2024 “connected to a designated body” – that is, got a position within the NHS – within six months.
2. That was lower on the one in five who did so in 2023 and one in four in 2022.

The lack in positions offered for early-career physicians to begin training in their chosen specialty has led the authorities to assign more of them to UK-trained medics.

But the GMC’s report warns ministers that that strategy, combined with the challenge of finding a job, may be misguided by discouraging overseas doctors from moving to the UK.

“It is crucial that workforce policies across all four [UK] countries do not accidentally discourage or push away the talent on which our medical system rely”, wrote the GMC chief and the regulatory head.