Why is there a shortage of doctors in UK?

Given the numbers of extremely able students who want to practice medicine, why is there such as shortage?

I know that there are a limited number of places at Uni's, but this just doesn't make sense.

Why are the NHS spending hundreds of thousands on recruitment drives to other countries,and paying German doctors extortionate amounts of money to do weekend cover, when there are loads of people here not being given the opportunity? This must be a top example of wasting public money!

What do other people think?

Cos Benabots are coming!

really good question, but i think its partly the cost that it takes to train the many thousands from having just finished the degree to consultant level, which must cost far more than the prices taken to recruit already trained professionals from other countries..

i think tho that this is just a temporary measure until the amount of doctors that have just graduated have reached a much higher level of ability. This will probably happen over the next 10 years, so that the batch of medical students are allowed to train and become consultants e.t.c. and until then the doctor shortages can only be solved by recuiting from abroad.

The problem with this is that doctors recruited from abroad are then poached by higher paying countries such as America, which means we are still left with a shortage! A similar pattern can be seen in the recruitment of nurses.

Things can only get worse by the introduction of the new working time directive- so come on Tony Blair, it's about time you spent some money to grow your own doctors, instead of depleting the resources of third world countries!

I thought it was more to do with the type of medicine that people choose to practice. Isn't the shortage of GP's where as other areas have to many doctors.