Record Figures of Internationally Qualified Physicians Leaving the UK, Creating Serious NHS Staffing Concerns
Record figures of overseas-trained physicians are leaving the UK, leaving the NHS at risk of huge shortages in its staffing, with hostility towards migrants being blamed for the departure.
Sharp Rise in Exits
In all, 4,880 physicians who qualified in overseas departed from the UK during 2024 – a increase of 26% on the 3,869 who did so the previous year – data from the General Medical Council show.
Healthcare executives, senior doctors and the GMC warned that increased denigration of and mistreatment directed at international staff in the UK was a major factor for the increase in foreign medics leaving.
Sector Executives Voice Worry
“It’s extremely concerning that so many well-trained and much appreciated overseas physicians the NHS just can’t afford to lose are leaving in their droves,” said Daniel Elkeles.
“We wouldn’t have an NHS if we hadn’t for many years recruited skilled and appreciated individuals from overseas. The diversity of the NHS staff is one of its biggest strengths.”
Dr Amit Kochhar stated: “Doctors who trained abroad have long made up a significant portion of the NHS staff, and medical care in the UK would have long since withered away without them.”
“But as we alerted last month, a sustained campaign of anti-migrant rhetoric is leaving many doctors with a migrant heritage questioning if it is valuable to remain.”
Political and Regulatory Reaction
The health secretary voiced alarm recently that NHS staff were bearing the brunt of a return to historical discrimination in Britain where it is “tolerated to be racist”.
The rise in overseas doctors quitting coincided with a stabilization in the number arriving to work in Britain, the GMC’s annual report on the condition of medical education and work in the UK for 2024 showed.
Staffing Statistics and Patterns
- Over twenty thousand who joined the UK physician database in 2024 were only a few more than the 19,629 who did so in 2023.
- This formed the lowest growth since 2020.
- The GMC’s results have raised concern because the NHS is so heavily reliant on physicians from abroad – 42% of its entire doctor staff qualified internationally.
“Overseas-trained doctors who have traditionally opted to work in the UK could quite conceivably choose to leave if they believe they have limited career advancement here, or if the country seems unfriendly,” stated Charlie Massey.
“Any hardening of rhetoric and decline of support could damage the UK’s image as somewhere the most talented individuals from all over the world would want to work.”
Job Challenges and Government Impact
The plateauing in overseas physicians arriving to the UK may be because such doctors are having difficulty to get a job, the GMC explained.
- Just 12.5% who became registered in the UK in 2024 “connected to a designated body” – that is, got a position within the NHS – within six months.
- That was lower on the 20% who did so in 2023 and 25% in 2022.
The shortage in places available for early-career physicians to begin training in their chosen specialty has prompted the authorities to allocate more of them to UK-trained medics.
But the GMC’s analysis alerts policymakers that that approach, combined with the challenge of securing a job, may prove misguided by deterring overseas doctors from moving to the UK.
“It is vital that workforce policies across all four [UK] countries do not accidentally demoralise or drive out the skilled professionals on which our health services depend”, stated the GMC chief and the GMC chair.
