NHS workforce crisis worsens as foreign doctor exodus rises 26% in a year

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By Ella Pickover, PA Media

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

A new 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.

Currently, two in five NHS doctors qualified outside of the UK, 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.

“It is vital that workforce policies do not inadvertently demoralise or drive out the talent on which our health services depend.