Report: Doctors leaving UK to work in other countries for better pay, working conditions

Doctors and nurses are leaving the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) to work in other countries, the Telegraph reports.

According to the report, figures from the General Medical Council (GMC) show that in 2022, there were 6,950 applications from UK doctors who are registered and licensed to obtain a certificate that allows them to work abroad.

This was an increase of 25 percent from 5,576 in 2021, with around a quarter targeting Australia.

St John of God Healthcare, a leading provider of hospitals, mental health facilities, and community services in Australia, said it has recently made 206 offers of employment to UK medical professionals, after a four-week recruitment drive in Britain.

Senior medical officers reportedly attribute the migration of doctors to burnout, high pressures on NHS hospitals, and frustration with working conditions.

Fergus Morris, a doctor who went from an NHS hospital in Staffordshire to work in Western Australia in 2015, said he has not looked back.

He added that he found the working conditions and standards of Australian hospitals, combined with higher pay, and an outdoors lifestyle, far superior to those in Britain.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Meanwhile, Charlie Massey, GMC chief executive said the council is aware that the doctors are leaving because they cannot tolerate the environments in which medicine 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,” he said.

“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.”