Doctors and nurses are abandoning the NHS to work in countries such as Australia, with overseas recruiters targeting those unhappy with pay and conditions in the UK.
Figures from the General Medical Council show the number of medics obtaining a certificate that allows them to work abroad has risen by 25 per cent in a year.
Last year, there were 6,950 applications from UK doctors who are registered and licensed, up from 5,576 in 2021 – with around a quarter targeting Australia.
One of the country’s largest acute hospitals has just offered 200 jobs after a recent recruitment drive, amid growing concerns about an exodus of healthcare workers from the UK.
It comes after a poll of 4,500 junior doctors in England found one in three intended to work abroad next year, with Australia and New Zealand the most popular destinations.
Senior medics said burnout, as a result of high pressures on NHS hospitals, and frustration with working conditions were among the key factors fuelling the trends.
On Monday, the British Medical Association will begin balloting junior doctors on strike action, with plans for a 72-hour walkout – including removal of emergency cover – if medics vote in favour. The union is campaigning for pay rises of more than a quarter, saying pay has not kept up with inflation over the past 15 years.
Senior doctors fear current pressures on A&E will increase the exodus, particularly among young medics, tempted by higher pay, work-life balance, and a less stressed worklife.
Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “There are high levels of burnout so doctors are reducing their hours or they are leaving; basically we have the most amazing medical training programme for Australia,” he added.
Ministers have repeatedly promised action to improve retention of medics, who cost around £230,000 each to train.
But proposals, including those that would force junior doctors to pay back some of the sum, have not got off the ground, while the NHS has more than 100,000 vacancies.
St John of God Healthcare, a leading provider of acute hospitals, mental health facilities and community services in Australia, said it has just made 206 offers of employment to UK medical professionals, after a four-week recruitment drive in Britain.
The GMC figures show that while some of the rise during 2022 relates to increased travel after pandemic restrictions eased, the numbers seeking certificates are significantly higher than before Covid, with a 13 per cent increase since 2019.
Dani Meinema, group director of nursing and patient experience, said job applicants cited the main motivations as lifestyle, work/life balance, as well as salary and career development opportunities.
Doctors and nurses from A&E units, oncology, intensive care, medical units and maternity services are among those recruited in the latest round.
It comes as the NHS faces major workforce shortages, with more than 100,000 jobs – one in 10 – now vacant.
Ms Meinema said the Australian way of life appealed to many medics who had trained in the UK, and struggled with the long hours and high stress.
“We can offer a different lifestyle, which in many places is centred on the beach, improved work-life balance and the chance to work in hospitals, many of them teaching hospitals that are renowned for acute clinical excellence and highly regarded patient-centred care.”
Dr Fergus Morris, 34, went from an NHS hospital in Staffordshire to work in Western Australia in 2015 and said he has not looked back.
Dr Morris, now an A&E consultant, said he had planned a 12-month stint, but found the working conditions and standards of Australian hospitals, combined with higher pay, and an outdoors lifestyle, far superior to those in Britain.
He said: “Obviously the weather is nice and there’s the surf and sea and sand; I thought it would make a break from working in the UK.
“But then there are so many other things; there are fewer patients waiting, you are able to see patients in a cubicle rather than a corridor. You get the time to examine patients properly, and to treat them, rather than just have to do everything so rapidly, and pass the patient on.”
‘I’m probably earning double what I would in the UK’
As a junior doctor, he was earning around twice the rates in the UK, with pay rising to around A$300,000 a year (£170,000) in his first year as consultant.
“I’m probably earning double what I would in the UK,” said Dr Morris, who works at two hospitals in Perth, including one run by St John of God Healthcare.
Charlie Massey, GMC chief executive said: “We know that many doctors are not leaving UK practice because they have fallen out of love with medicine. Instead, they leave because they cannot tolerate the environments in which it is practised. Doctors who may otherwise have had long careers in this country are leaving the UK profession, talented individuals the system cannot afford to lose.
“At a time when patients face unprecedented waits for care, and healthcare professionals continue to be under immense pressure, we must do more to turn the tide of talented registrants leaving the NHS.
“If we want more doctors to flourish and grow their careers here in the UK, we must improve their working environments and make workplaces more inclusive and caring.”
Wes Streeting, shadow health secretary, said: “The fact that so many doctors are seeking to work abroad shows that they have no confidence in this Government’s ability to run the NHS. The British taxpayer has paid to train them and a mass exodus is the last thing we need.
“Labour knows staff retention is just as vital to the NHS as recruitment. That’s why alongside one of the biggest expansions of medical training in history paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status, we will fix doctors pension rules that drive them out of the service and deliver a workforce plan that will keep doctors in the NHS and seek to encourage those who’ve left to come back and help us fix the problems that forced them to leave in the first place.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The vast majority of doctors trained in the UK do go on to work in the NHS. More than 93 per cent are using their medical qualification within the UK, according to 2022 data from the General Medical Council.
“There are now almost 4,700 more doctors and over 10,500 more nurses working in the NHS than Oct 2021, and we will publish a plan this year with independently verified forecasts to help support and grow the NHS workforce.”
Culled from The Telegraph
