NHS could be hit by loss of foreign doctors

THE NHS could be left with “huge holes” in its medical workforce if foreign doctors leave the health service, according to the medical regulator.

- ELLA PICKOVER

A new General Medical Council (GMC) report has revealed that 4,880 doctors who trained abroad left the UK workforce in 2024 a 26% increase on 3,869 in 2023.

Doctors who qualified outside of the UK currently make up around 42% of the workforce, it said.

GMC chief executive Charlie Massey said: “Doctors represent a mobile workforce, whose skills are in high demand around the world. Internationally qualified doctors who have historically chosen to work in the UK could quite conceivably choose to leave if they feel they have no future job progression here, or if the country feels less welcoming.

“Any hardening of rhetoric and falling away of support could undermine the UK's image as somewhere the brightest and the best from all over the world want to work.