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Record numbers of overseas-trained physicians are quitting the UK, placing the NHS at risk of huge shortages in its workforce, with hostility towards foreign workers being blamed for the departure.

Significant Increase in Exits

Altogether, 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 previous year – data from the General Medical Council reveal.

NHS leaders, senior doctors and the GMC warned that growing criticism of and mistreatment directed at international staff in the UK was a major factor for the increase in overseas doctors departing.

Industry Executives Express Worry

“It’s really concerning that so many well-trained and highly valued overseas physicians the NHS just can’t afford to lose are departing in their droves,” said a hospitals group chief executive.

“We wouldn’t have an NHS if we had not for many years brought in talented and appreciated people from overseas. The diversity of the NHS workforce is one of its biggest assets.”

A senior medical representative said: “Physicians who trained overseas have long constituted a significant sector of the NHS staff, and healthcare in the UK would have already collapsed without them.”

“But as we alerted last month, a sustained campaign of anti-migrant language is leaving many doctors with a migrant background questioning if it is valuable to remain.”

Government and Oversight Response

The health secretary voiced alarm recently that NHS staff were suffering the impact of a return to historical discrimination in Britain where it is “socially acceptable to be prejudiced”.

The increase in foreign physicians leaving occurred alongside a stabilization in the number coming to work in Britain, the GMC’s annual report on the condition of doctor training and practice in the UK for 2024 showed.

Workforce Statistics and Trends

• Over twenty thousand who joined the UK medical register last year were only a few more than the 19,629 who did so in 2023.
• This represented the lowest growth since 2020.
• The GMC’s results have raised concern because the NHS is so strongly dependent on doctors from elsewhere – 42% of its entire doctor staff trained overseas.

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

“Any intensification of rhetoric and falling away of backing could undermine the UK’s reputation as somewhere the brightest and the best from all over the world would want to work.”

Job Difficulties and Policy Effects

The plateauing in foreign doctors arriving to the UK may be because such medics are having difficulty to secure employment, the GMC said.

1. Just 12.5% who joined the register in the UK last year “connected to a NHS post” – that is, secured a post within the NHS – within six months.
2. That was lower on the 20% who did so in 2023 and 25% in 2022.

The lack in places offered for early-career doctors to begin training in their selected medical specialism has prompted the authorities to allocate more of them to UK-trained doctors.

But the GMC’s analysis warns ministers that that strategy, combined with the difficulty of securing a job, may be misguided by deterring international physicians from moving to the UK.

“It is vital that staffing policies throughout all four [UK] countries do not inadvertently discourage or drive out the talent on which our medical system depend”, wrote the GMC chief and the regulatory head.