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Record numbers of overseas-trained physicians are leaving the UK, leaving the National Health Service at risk of huge gaps in its staffing, with hostility towards foreign workers being blamed for the departure.

Significant Rise in Departures

In all, 4,880 physicians who qualified in another country departed from the UK during 2024 – a rise of 26% on the 3,869 who did so the year before – figures from the General Medical Council reveal.

NHS leaders, senior doctors and the GMC cautioned that growing criticism of and abuse directed at international staff in the UK was a significant factor for the increase in foreign medics leaving.

Industry Leaders Express Worry

“It’s extremely concerning that so many well-trained and highly valued international doctors the NHS just cannot do without are departing in their large numbers,” said a hospitals group chief executive.

“We wouldn’t have an NHS if we had not for many years recruited skilled and valued individuals from overseas. The diversity of the NHS staff is one of its greatest assets.”

Dr Amit Kochhar said: “Physicians who trained abroad have long constituted a substantial portion of the NHS staff, and healthcare in the UK would have already collapsed without them.”

“But as we warned last month, a ongoing trend of hostile rhetoric is leaving many physicians with a international heritage questioning if it is valuable to remain.”

Government and Regulatory Reaction

Wes Streeting expressed concern recently that NHS employees were suffering the impact of a resurgence to 1970s and 1980s-style racism in Britain where it is “tolerated to be prejudiced”.

The increase in foreign physicians leaving coincided with a stabilization in the number arriving to work in Britain, the medical regulator’s yearly analysis on the state of medical education and work in the UK for 2024 indicated.

Workforce Statistics and Trends

• The 20,060 who entered the UK physician database in 2024 were only a few more than the 19,629 who did so in 2023.
• This formed the smallest increase since 2020.
• The GMC’s findings have caused alarm because the NHS is so strongly dependent on doctors from abroad – 42% of its whole medical workforce trained overseas.

“Internationally qualified doctors who have traditionally opted to work in the UK could quite conceivably choose to depart if they feel they have limited career advancement here, or if the nation seems unfriendly,” stated Charlie Massey.

“Any intensification of rhetoric and decline of backing could undermine the UK’s reputation as a place the most talented individuals from globally would want to work.”

Employment Difficulties and Policy Effects

The plateauing in foreign doctors coming to the UK may be because such medics are having difficulty to get a job, the GMC explained.

1. Only one in eight who became registered in the UK last year “connected to a NHS post” – 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 25% in 2022.

The shortage in positions available for early-career physicians to begin training in their chosen specialty has led the government to allocate more of them to UK-trained doctors.

But the GMC’s analysis warns policymakers that that strategy, combined with the challenge of securing a job, may prove misguided by discouraging overseas doctors from moving to the UK.

“It is vital that workforce policies throughout all four [UK] countries do not accidentally demoralise or push away the skilled professionals on which our health services depend”, stated Massey and the regulatory head.