Overseas doctors will remain 'crucial' despite recruitment drive

Attracting skilled overseas-trained doctors to the UK will remain "crucial", despite plans to train more healthcare staff here, the doctors' regulator has said.

The General Medical Council (GMC) found that nearly two-thirds (63%) of new doctors in 2022 qualified abroad.

The government launched a major plan in June to train and recruit more healthcare workers in England. But it will take many years for this to take effect, the GMC says.

NHS England says it currently has 10,855 full-time doctor vacancies - a rate of 7.2%.

Under NHS England's Long Term Workforce Plan, it hopes to recruit and retain "hundreds of thousands" more healthcare staff over the next 15 years. The plan includes spending £2.4bn on additional training places for healthcare workers, with the number of medical school places for student doctors set to double to 15,000 a year.

Charlie Massey, the GMC's chief executive, said the drive to boost the workforce was "brilliant", but said "it takes a long time to make a doctor".

"We're not going to see the impact of that coming on stream for probably the best part of a decade. And that means we're going to need to rely on doctors who have trained overseas coming to the UK in much greater numbers than in recent years to maintain the workforce that we need to meet the needs of the population."

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Source: BBC News, 13 November 2023