Ministers have been urged to “wake up” to the over-reliance on foreign doctors after a new report found Britain has twice as many overseas medial professionals compared to the Western average.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found 38.3 per cent of the UK’s medical workforce in 2023 were trained abroad. In contract, the average across western nations is just 19.6 per cent.
Meanwhile, more recent data from the General Medical Council (GMC) indicated the number of foreign-trained doctors had risen to 42 per cent.
Conservative shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew said the Government must now urgently act to better train up home-grown doctors and nurses in order to secure the future of the NHS.
He said: “As we bring in more from abroad, UK-trained doctors are left fighting for fewer spots.”
Describing the findings from the OECD as a “wake up call” to The Telegraph, he added: “To secure the future of our NHS, we must reform the system to not only recruit internationally but also invest in and prioritise domestic talent.”
Of the 28 countries included in the study, only five were more reliant on foreign doctors than the UK – Israel, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand and Switzerland.
However, comparable countries such as Australia and Canada were dependant on small numbers of overseas professionals (31.4 and 24.6 per cent respectively), and in Europe, Germany used jus 15 per cent of foreign-trained doctors and France used just 11 per cent.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found 38.3 per cent of the UK’s medical workforce were trained abroad
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In Italy the number was even starker with just one in every 100 doctors was not trained at home.
Gareth Lyon, head of health and social care at the think tank Policy Exchange, said: “The UK needs to train more doctors and to establish more medical schools to train them.”
Criticising the Government for “relying on a quick fix of recruiting ever more clinicians from overseas”, he said expanding the number of medical graduates trained in the UK could “secure a healthy return to the Exchequer of £260k to £505k for each student”.
The OECD also found Britain is being used as a gateway country by many medical professionals, with the UK used as a “stepping-stone” to other places.
MORE ON BRITAIN’S MIGRATION NATION
The NHS has been warned of the “risks of relying heavily on international recruitment”
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Warning of the “risks of relying heavily on international recruitment” it found many of those who come to work in Britain go on to countries including the US, Australia or New Zealand.
The conclusions are aligned with the findings of a GMC report from last month which indicated there had been a sharp rise in the number of non-UK qualified doctors moving elsewhere.
It found in 2024, 4,880 doctors who had obtained their primary medical qualification overseas before working in the UK had subsequently left the country.
The figure represented a 26 per cent increase on 2023 when 3,869 foreign doctors had chose to quit Britain.
Wes Streeting has vowed to increase the number of doctors and nurses trained in the UK
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Chief Executive of the GMC Charlie Massey said: “Doctors who qualified outside of the UK make up 42 per cent of those working in the UK.
“If we see even a small percentage increase in them leaving, our health services will end up with huge holes that they’ll struggle to fill.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has vowed to increase the number of doctors and nurses trained in the UK as part of his 10-year health plan for the NHS.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We hugely value the contribution of doctors and nurses from around the world who have chosen to work in the NHS, but these figures expose the absurd legacy we inherited.
“A failure to train enough home-grown medical professionals has left us overly reliant on international recruitment to plug the gaps.
“We have committed in our 10-year plan to prioritise UK medical graduates, to undo the policies introduced by the last government, which opened up competition for jobs to doctors from around the world.”
