NHS foreign doctor hires outnumber places for Brits in medical school, report reveals

Last year, more foreign doctors joined the health service than the number of British students enrolled in medical schools, figures show.

NHS England recruited more than 12,000 doctors from abroad by 2022, while only about 7,000 Britons began studying medicine nationwide.

The figures, compiled by think tank Migration Watch UK, also show that almost half of all doctors who joined NHS England last year were from abroad.

It urges the government to be charged with ‘dereliction of duty’ and urges it to increase the number of medical places available to students in the UK.

Based on NHS workforce data, these charts show the percentage of doctors and nurses joining the NHS in England based on where they were originally trained. In both professions, the number of UK-trained joiners has decreased over time (red lines), while the number of non-EU-trained professionals has increased (yellow lines). The proportion of EU professionals joining the NHS has declined over time, taking a sharp plunge in the years following the 2016 Brexit vote

The report published today shows that NHS England will employ 26,321 doctors in 2022, of whom 12,148 (46 per cent) were foreign nationals.

The vast majority (10,193) came from outside the EU.

This figure is 73 percent higher than the 7,015 British students who have enrolled in medical training at English medical schools in recent years, according to research from Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for less immigration.

It also means that twice as many doctors were recruited from oversight agencies last year compared to 2018, when the number was 6,222.

Over the same period, the number of British doctors in training increased by just 17 percent.

As a result, most new doctors joining the NHS in England in coming years will be foreign nationals, the think tank claims.

As a result, the health service will depend on recruiting abroad, it said.

It noted that last year more than 10,000 applicants hoping to study medicine were turned down, despite many meeting grade requirements for the course.

Medical school places in England are limited to about 7,500 due to the government’s strict funding limit.

Doctors’ unions are facing a chronic staff shortage in the NHS – which has more than 130,000 vacancies in England – which has left the healthcare sector dependent on international recruitment due to a lack of long-term staff planning.

Migration Watch called on the government to immediately increase medical training capacity in the UK by 1,500, which it said would cost £427 million. It said all available places must be filled by UK students.

The UK’s Medical Schools Council previously warned that an additional 5,000 places are needed and questioned why a “highly developed country like the UK should depend on other countries” for medics.

But the hiring of medics from abroad shows no signs of slowing down, with the Health Ministry last year launching an international recruitment task force to consider “innovative ways to increase the workforce” in health and social care.

The NHS has spent around £584 million over the past five years on hiring overseas staff, including on recruitment agencies, overseas travel and visas.

India and Pakistan are the two largest non-British countries where doctors are currently registered to work in Britain, originally trained with around 30,000 and 17,000 respectively. This is followed by Nigeria, Egypt, Ireland, South Africa, Greece, Sudan, Italy and Romania

Jeremy Hutton, a researcher at Migration Watch UK said: ‘The Government’s failure to increase the number of funded training places while demand has grown is nothing short of a dereliction of duty.

‘It’s one thing to recruit foreign doctors to meet short-term needs, it’s quite another to rely on them for the long term rather than training future doctors here in Britain. even the effort to train.’

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: ‘International recruitment is just one part of our plans to grow the NHS workforce and the supply of homegrown staff is increasing with record numbers of doctors and nurses.

“We have funded 1,500 additional medical schools per year since 2020 – an increase of 25% – and we have established five new medical schools as part of this process.

‘This year we will publish a multi-year personnel plan aimed at recruiting and retaining more personnel.’