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NO MORE overseas doctors for NHS!

News just dropped that the NHS will only accept 1 in 10 foreign trained doctors on the NHS
Meaning anyone that's studying abroad, this will be applying to you

Dentistry is the way and I can have that discussion with anyone willing to have it
But please, if you are considering doing it abroad, think twice now, your chances have drastically dropped in getting on to any future form of speciality training

Reply 1

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Reply 2

Not everyone studying dentistry in the UK will have a NHS contract come the end of it. Many international students are thus obliged to return home after they graduate as there is no training place in the UK for them. This is part and parcel of the system in the UK unfortunately and I should think they are fully aware of this before embarking on the course.

Of course UK medical graduate prioritisation is the only sensible option: the UK tax payer has stumped up 230K for each graduate by the end of the course. It's logical that these same people are given a job and access to a training pathway or else why bother to train them in the first place?

It's also highly ethically dubious for the UK to be poaching doctors and nurses from all over the world, particularly when it comes to developing countries. There are WHO/UN rules that specify this should not be occurring.

This situation only arose because of the previous government putting healthcare professions on the occupational shortage list and thus idiotically making thousands of new doctors and nurses graduate or complete their foundation with no job to go to.
(edited 9 months ago)

Reply 3

Original post
by ErasistratusV
Not everyone studying dentistry in the UK will have a NHS contract come the end of it. Many international students are thus obliged to return home after they graduate as there is no training place in the UK for them.
Of course UK medical graduate prioritisation is the only sensible option: the UK tax payer has stumped up 230K for each graduate by the end of the course. It's logical that these same people are given a job and access to a training pathway or else why bother to train them in the first place?
It's also highly ethically dubious for the UK to be poaching doctors and nurses from all over the world, particularly when it comes to developing countries. There are WHO/UN rules that specify this should not be occurring.
This situation only arose because of the previous government putting healthcare professions on the occupational shortage list and thus idiotically making thousands of new doctors and nurses graduating with no job to go to.

Agreed, but NHS contracts are everywhere and all uk grads will have no issue finding one, or taking the PLVE style route where there are way too many positions and not enough people filling them

The only "downside" is that they may be placed in geographical areas of the country that they may not have wanted to go to, but that's still better than being unemployed, and after the contract (1 year usually) they have a CV enabling them to pretty much go anywhere across the country

Reply 4

Original post
by the_stu_DENT
News just dropped that the NHS will only accept 1 in 10 foreign trained doctors on the NHS
Meaning anyone that's studying abroad, this will be applying to you
Dentistry is the way and I can have that discussion with anyone willing to have it
But please, if you are considering doing it abroad, think twice now, your chances have drastically dropped in getting on to any future form of speciality training


Can u share the official news / weblink about this policy, please? Thanks
Hi there,

I've moved this to a more relevant subforum :smile:

Reply 6

Original post
by the_stu_DENT
News just dropped that the NHS will only accept 1 in 10 foreign trained doctors on the NHS
Meaning anyone that's studying abroad, this will be applying to you
Dentistry is the way and I can have that discussion with anyone willing to have it
But please, if you are considering doing it abroad, think twice now, your chances have drastically dropped in getting on to any future form of speciality training

is that just for doctors or also for allied health professions like nurses radiographers?

Reply 7

Original post
by Anonymous
is that just for doctors or also for allied health professions like nurses radiographers?

It's just for the medical profession. Nurses and other allied professions will need to get their unions to sort this because having newly graduated nurses and radiographers and physios and SLTs etc with no job to go to is wrong on a whole host of levels.

Reply 8

Original post
by Anonymous
is that just for doctors or also for allied health professions like nurses radiographers?

Just docs it seems

Reply 9

Original post
by ErasistratusV
It's just for the medical profession. Nurses and other allied professions will need to get their unions to sort this because having newly graduated nurses and radiographers and physios and SLTs etc with no job to go to is wrong on a whole host of levels.

I believe it's in relation to the speciality training, so doctors per se

Reply 10

Original post
by the_stu_DENT
I believe it's in relation to the speciality training, so doctors per se

Yes, it's specifically due to the presently insane application ratios for basically any job post foundation. It is resulting in more and more doctors emigrating to find work abroad.

Reply 11

Original post
by ErasistratusV
Yes, it's specifically due to the presently insane application ratios for basically any job post foundation. It is resulting in more and more doctors emigrating to find work abroad.

Totally agree that the focus should be on home grown talent. I do feel for the foreign doctors that had their life focused on working in the UK (for whatever reason, but they do exist) and worse for UK students that are abroad studying right now, because this will affect them too

#Dentistry lol

If anyone needs a link to the video I made, feel free to drop me a PM I would be happy to share 🙂

Reply 12

NHS in England told to slash recruitment of overseas-trained medics | NHS | The Guardian -
important positive change for the number of graduate training places - presumably to stop the brain drain of UK trained medics to overseas jobs

“Undergraduate medical places have been expanded without a commensurate expansion in postgraduate training places, compounded by the 2020 decision to open competition for postgraduate medical training to international trainees on equal terms with UK-trained graduates,” the report says.

“As a result competition ratios for postgraduate places increased from 1.9 applications per place in 2019 to nearly five per place in 2024.”

The plan says the government will work to prioritise UK medical graduates for foundation training and to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors who have worked in the NHS for a significant period for specialty training."

Reply 13

I'm not sure I support the idea of grandfathering until the real numbers in all this are known.

This issue stems entirely from the idiot previous government.

The BMA should also be mentioning that this problem isn't confined to medicine: it is also happening to the other professions, including nursing. Obviously they have their own unions who should be equally vocal about this.

Reply 14

Original post
by McGinger
NHS in England told to slash recruitment of overseas-trained medics | NHS | The Guardian -
important positive change for the number of graduate training places - presumably to stop the brain drain of UK trained medics to overseas jobs
“Undergraduate medical places have been expanded without a commensurate expansion in postgraduate training places, compounded by the 2020 decision to open competition for postgraduate medical training to international trainees on equal terms with UK-trained graduates,” the report says.
“As a result competition ratios for postgraduate places increased from 1.9 applications per place in 2019 to nearly five per place in 2024.”
The plan says the government will work to prioritise UK medical graduates for foundation training and to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors who have worked in the NHS for a significant period for specialty training."

I am all for this, just spare a thought for the foreign trained docs

Reply 15

Original post
by ErasistratusV
I'm not sure I support the idea of grandfathering until the real numbers in all this are known.
This issue stems entirely from the idiot previous government.
The BMA should also be mentioning that this problem isn't confined to medicine: it is also happening to the other professions, including nursing. Obviously they have their own unions who should be equally vocal about this.

Do you think this will spread over to other healthcare pros?

Reply 16

Original post
by ErasistratusV
I'm not sure I support the idea of grandfathering until the real numbers in all this are known.
This issue stems entirely from the idiot previous government.
The BMA should also be mentioning that this problem isn't confined to medicine: it is also happening to the other professions, including nursing. Obviously they have their own unions who should be equally vocal about this.

I totally agree. Its actually poor pay and conditions that have driven many doctors out of the NHS, and the Tories did b-all about fixing the 'retention' of those already trained/experienced. Just shoving more Med students into Unis was a typical Tory quick fix, but all its done is saturate the graduate market and with not enough graduate training places, not done anything to fixing the immediate shortage of NHS doctors.

Let us hope that the current government are a bit more clued-up - Starmer's wife works in the NHS and Wes Streeting seems to have more idea than the endless 'new' Tory Ministers we kept getting, who just shuffled paper and smiled a lot but actually had no interest in the job.

We can hope. Lets see what Labour comes up with before we condemn.

Reply 17

Original post
by the_stu_DENT
I am all for this, just spare a thought for the foreign trained docs

Their own countries need them far more.

Reply 18

As a hcsw wishing to go into medicine, I was kind of starting to think I would have a hurrah of foundation years before having to somehow give up the gmc registration and return to being a hcsw. I have witnessed a round of nursing students graduate (often on a flexi-nursing apprenticeship model of training), get gazumped by the healthboard making a mass hire of newly qualified international nurses, then not supported them, thrown them in the deep-end like a&e without proper mentorship, making them stressed - not considering the impact of a billingual environment, and leaving hcsws to pick up the pieces in perceived more grimy jobs (like last offices)....

Due to people completing their nursing course if they were previously healthcare assistants, they had trained themselves out of a job, as the healthboard wouldn't let them work as a lower band with a pin. It's the only hospital with a surrounding hospital desert so they were effectively screwed jobswise.

Its also been sad seeing stressed out F2s not get jobs, especially if people have really dreamed of living in the uk, but atleast if people are forewarned from the start for the challenge they might reconsider. There is also a lot of complaining about lack of training opportunites in the rural hospital - so I'm not actually certain a lot of F1s wanted to be posted there, and I think there's a lack of awareness of the toughness of the conditions, differences in access to imaging equipment and possible lack of progression that should really be communicated to IMGs...That said the local hospital would seemingly fall appart without all the sad, unhappy people tricked into a rural area.

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