Analysis indicates that the English National Health Service is increasingly dependent on doctors and nurses recruited from outside the UK and EU.
In 2016, around 34% of new doctors to health care arrived from abroad, up from 18% in 2014.
According to the administration, international recruitment has long been a part of its agenda.
However, unions have warned that this kind of recruitment is unsustainable in the long run.
In 2020-21, a total of 39,558 domestically-trained physicians and nurses joined the NHS, which is approximately 3,200 higher than in 2014-15.
During this period, however, the proportion of British physicians to the total 1.35 million workforce decreased.
From 2015 through 2021, the BBC’s Shared Statistics Unit analyzed workforce data provided by NHS Digital.
This analysis revealed:
- The proportion of British physicians joining health care decreased from 69 percent in 2015 to 58 percent in 2016. During the same time frame, the proportion of new nurses in the United Kingdom decreased from 74% to 61%.
- The proportion of doctors recruited from outside the UK and EU increased from 18 to 34 percent, while the proportion of nurses increased from 7 to 34 percent.
Patricia Marquis, director for England at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), stated that ministers must do more to lessen the “disproportionate dependence” on international recruits.
The government is sponsoring an additional 1,500 undergraduate medical school positions annually for English students, an increase of 25% over three years.
MPs determined in a study released last week that the enormous number of unfilled NHS job openings, over 110,000 in all, posed a major risk to patient safety.
NHS Employers chief executive, Danny Mortimer, stated that it was “high time for the government to commit to a fully-funded, long-term manpower plan for the NHS” to combat “chronic labor shortages.”
Sumaira Babar, a consultant radiologist, is just one of the increasing number of foreign nationals joining the NHS. In October of last year, she relocated from Karachi, Pakistan, to Huddersfield with her young family.
She said, “I figured why not, it’ll be an adventure and something different.” “It will be different from what I’m accustomed to. It will also be beneficial for the youngsters. Kids will be exposed to a different culture and environment, and as a result, they will learn how the world functions.
However, according to the British Medical Association, even though the NHS is recruiting more individuals from outside, retaining them remains a struggle. It mentioned “heavy workloads” and visa costs.
Doctors told that many are training in the United Kingdom before relocating to countries with more favorable immigration policies and working circumstances.
The number of non-UK and EU doctors leaving the NHS increased from 15 percent in 2015 to 25 percent in 2021.
Dr. Amit Kochhar, the vice-chairman of its international committee, stated that medical graduates were paid up to £2,400 to apply for indefinite leave to remain, with each of their dependents being charged the same amount.
Dr. Hajra Usmani, who worked for the NHS for 18 years but decided to quit her position as an A&E consultant in Frimley, Surrey, last year, encountered this issue.
The 46-year-old mother of two, who currently works in a similar capacity in Medina, Saudi Arabia, stated that the cost of visas prevented her from bringing her elderly parents to England.
She stated that her mother has been diagnosed with severe dementia and her father has cognitive impairment. “I cannot leave them without supervision.
“They would have been required to pay a surcharge to the NHS, but I halted the application in September since the visas and legal fees were approaching £6,000 before the Home Office would review the petitions.
We are currently in Saudi Arabia, where dependant visa extensions are available.
Dr. Usmani stated that she knew of several other physicians who followed a similar path.
“The majority of my coworkers are former UK-trained NHS personnel. This is an evacuation. The NHS is currently disintegrating.”
EU staff decline
The percentage of EU citizens joining the English National Health Service decreased from 11 percent in 2015 to 6 percent in 2016.
Histopathology is Dr. Alexia Tsigka’s area of expertise at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals, where she serves as a consultant “according to the Royal College of Pathologists, only 3% of departments in the United Kingdom are completely staffed.
“I haven’t seen any Europeans entering our department since Brexit, at least. The majority of applicants to our department’s residency program hail from India, Egypt, and Sri Lanka.
“Post-Covid, we’ve also lost a significant number of colleagues. We anticipate an exodus.”
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) attributed the reduction in EU nationals joining the health service to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s implementation of more stringent language examinations (NMC).
A government spokesperson defended the testing as “a vital patient safety safeguard.”
Another likely explanation was the economic recovery of southern European nations, as many nurses left their home countries for the United Kingdom when work was scarce.
International recruitment has “long been part of the NHS workforce plan,” according to the spokesperson, with approximately one-seventh of the workforce being non-British.
The department spokesperson refuted the assertion that “immigration restrictions were a major factor in the departure of healthcare workers from the United Kingdom.”
There was “no requirement for healthcare workers to apply for [Indefinite Leave to Remain],” he continued, “and they may, under the new points-based system, remain in the United Kingdom on a health and care visa, which was a key pledge in the government’s manifesto.”
