AIBU to be furious that there are no jobs for young doctors

[Needmoresleep]

Yes, you read it right!

At the end of their two foundation years (F1 & F2), young UK trained doctors are struggling to find work. They don’t want to go to Australia or NZ but for many this will be the only option. Seven or eight years study and work down the drain.
The UK supposedly has a shortage of doctors, so immigration rules have been amended to encourage overseas applicants. They then complete equally with those who are working in, or studied in the UK for both general entry level jobs (known informally as F3s) and for speciality training positions.

The average hard-working doctor does not stand much of a chance. Anecdotally even quite ordinary vacancies will attract hundreds if not thousands of on-line applications. The NHS does not keep statistics, but it appears that to keep numbers manageable many NHS Trusts will shut applications within a few hours. Tough for the junior doctor who is at work or sleeping off a night shift. The best from overseas will be very qualified with perhaps a decade of experience, and lots of additional bells and whistles, so it probably does not matter. They will score better so the chance of an interview for a young doctor who needs to build their own experience will be vanishingly low.

The expansion of medical school places, and allocation of some of these traditional entry level roles to Physician Associates is only exacerbating the problem.

Training positions are even more competitive. The Government has introduced a number of incentives to encourage applicants from overseas: exemptions from exams, guarantees on training and promises for British citizenship. Medical school places have been expanding without a parallel increase in training opportunities so bottlenecks would have happened anyway. In 2021 36% of new trainees were from medical schools outside the UK. In 2023 it was 41.5%. This trend is expected to be continuing, even accelerating.

A group of us have been on the higher education board since our DC were applying for medical school. They are now F2s spread across the country, working long hours for relatively little pay but enjoying the contribution they are making. None of them expect to get either a short term contract or a training position, so are applying to Australia or accepting that they will be reliant on zero hours NHS bank work covering staff absences.
As taxpayers we should be concerned that we are paying for medical schools, yet the NHS is not supporting their graduates into employment. We might also question why we are not giving priority to those already working in the NHS for the limited training slots. Doctors from elsewhere may be very good, but a significant proportion are then likely to leave to return home or to take up well paid private consultancy posts in either their home countries or in medical hubs like Dubai or Singapore.

Keir Starmer has said he will review sectors seeking labour from abroad to ensure that applications for the relevant visa routes, whether it’s the skilled worker route or the shortage occupation list will be balanced with expectations on training people here in our country. Wes Streeting seems to be refusing to answer questions on the topic. Whilst last week the BMA finally issued the following statement, albeit limited to training:
https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/bma-statement-on-speciality-training-application-bottlenecks

Any action will be too late for our DC. When they applied for medicine they did not realise that it would mean having to leave the country. The hope has to be that a way is found to retain those that follow and to allow our impressive young people to be able to return.

@OneMorePiece I think they are Colin Massey 😂

Any idea what happened to @takeittakeit ?

Disappeared soon after I asked @takeittakeit some questions. I think members of the general public, NHS users and taxpayers might be interested in the answers.

@OneMorePiece to be fair, they may just be busy. But they never told me where all those jobs were.

True. The answers would be useful to help us understand what's happening.

@OneMorePiece unfortunately I think some senior doctors currently can't, or won't, see the problems. Much like the PA issue.

The next few weeks are going to be the crunch as interviews and offers start happening. Come April, we'll have a better picture as to how bad it's going to be. Bad, hideous or worse.

Sorry, I have been on call in the hospital doing my job - answering Mumsnet does not really get included in my job description and some would say was an abuse of NHS resources!

The tone of this discussion has changed from all F2 British graduates should have jobs to one that now includes IMGs that have been in the country for 2 yrs. So a move from where we started.

Clavinova had it right EU graduates were the same as British graduates until Brexit and people did not like that - the numbers were huge ( see my earlier posts)

I do not believe in a complete run through system which provides no challenge and competition to progress, more a hybrid which is more holistic and adaptable to individual circumstances. We had run through and it failed for many people in may ways - not the career they wanted, trapped on a treadmill, lack of effort through the programme because you knew you were guaranteed the ticket to the end. It works for some but not for others - I know one person FY1/2CT1/2/3/4/5/67... Consultant. That person wishes they could have jumped off the treadmill, done something different and is now on an extended 2 yr sabbatical within 3 yrs of becoming a consultant - that is a waste of taxpayers monies aswell. I honestly do not think he will return to Medicine. He is not alone

If you want 9500 jobs for the 9500 F2s then we will be bringing in international medical graduates because not everyone wants to go straight on, they travel,get sick take 6 months out, do all sorts which leaves slots open needing to be filled

Sadly this thread has descended beyond the level of sensible discussion, when people post pictures of grey rock and think it is funny then they have lost the ability to graciously listen and see other sides of a debate, which they may not agree with but they can respect that someone else has a different view point and knowledge base to them. But as I am not really an NHS consultant despite my ability to speak about training in the NHS, jobs, career pathways with knowledge and real life up to date experience from talking and helping my residents in their careers - I will bow out. As tomorrow is a busy all day clinic which I need to prepare for and an exam viva session to deliver for the exam candidates. that I do not give a toss about!

I wish all your DCs good luck - they will get there by various means, some easier than others but at the end of the day they will.

Well good luck to your DCs. Do let us know how you got on! It's a shame the organisation of the NHS is such a mess. It's like when you try to get an appointment. You have to battle hard just to get seen but it's great in the end, as most of the time, you get fab care from the doctors once you get to see them.

Yes, I do agree there seems to be an issue of some doctors not recognising your DCs' issues as they didn't have that same experience. It might explain some of the issues with recruitment now.

That was in response to @mumsneedwine 's post to me.

@OneMorePiece thank you. Mine will be OK (if 12,000 miles away). But many others won't be.

Well good luck to her! Of course changes are needed to help the rest.

@takeittakeit I don't find it funny at all. It makes me angry. I find it v v sad that we are forcing our young doctors abroad. But if posters keep talking rubbish there is no point engaging. It stops the thread being derailed yet again.

It's so v v sad that some senior doctors can not see what's happening. But that's how we've got PAs doing paediatric surgery.

Attack me all you want (I won't repeat the phrase I used last night as apparently it's aggressive) . This is an issue that's not going away.

Doctors who aren't academic??? Hmmmm. Probably not many of those

And maybe have a quick chat with your exam candidate and ask how they, and their friends, are feeling. I wish we were making this all up.

Please please listen to your resident doctors. Not me. Not any random on the internet. Listen to the F2s.

@Thisismetooaswell my grey rocks are because you can't keep arguing with stupid. Apparently all you need to succeed is hard work. All our DC are just lazy idiots.

Who should work for free.

I do listen and do guide them in various directions one size does not fit all.

Do you have time to answer my post re recruitment?

@takeittakeit please please ask them tomorrow how many of their friends have got an interview. IMT and Paeds have been a disaster for many as they haven't got the points to even get an interview - every other year they would.

Ignore me if you don't like me, but listen to the F2s. Not sure what exam they are prepping for - are they all going for GP/Psyc ? MSRA been and gone for majority.

This week will be interesting as cut offs for interview are released. CST already up, as is EM. Number applying for EM double that of last year.

This one @takeittakeit . Please explain if you can? Thanks

Just trying to make sense of the mess which is now affecting our young people!

Me too. I want to understand why the doctors are telling us it's a mess. And how we can help fix it.

I am sad that people are making it personal about us as parents rather than look at the issues. We are not saying stuff for any reason other than it's the reality doctors are experiencing.

Let's hope for the sake of all doctors, local and foreign in this country, these issues are addressed asap. A resolution to this matter is long overdue! Now it's affecting everyone; patients as well as NHS staff!

EM interviews came out last week.

When in trouble play the racist card.

However this time it is not the get out of jail free card you assume it is.

Our DC will be OK. I don't want DD to have to go to the other side of the world for work, but she is young, fit and capable and we can afford the airfares. This scandal will explode soon and so with luck and a couple of year's experience under her belt she should be in a good position to apply for jobs here. (If she wants to.)

The people most affected will often be those involved in expanding access initiatives. Or those less able. A proportion of these will be ethnic minority, perhaps first or second generation. Some will have disabilities or need access to specialist medical treatment. Some will have partners in different professions unable to move, parents to care for or other family ties, some will be from cultural backgrounds where they expect to stay at home till marriage.

This tsunami of overseas applicants for short term contracts and entry level jobs, some seemingly paying agents to help with their applications, is also hurting experienced doctors. The GP with 10 years experience returning from a career break, the doctor recruited from overseas on a short term contract who now cannot find work. As well as those other Health Care Professionals faces with similar competition. The story up thread of an entire graduating class of nurses not finding work whilst executives from the local hospital are going on recruitment jaunts to Asia perhaps shocked me most.

If my concerns are racist, then the term has become devalued. I would add that in the group that have been posting regularly Haff's D is not alone in not being white British. The assumption that a, slightly random, group of educated young people in Britain today would all be white is slightly odd. Perhaps our consultant could observe her own group of F2s.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Trump is receiving support from ethnic minorities voters in the US over his dismantling of DEI initiatives. Trump is not the solution, nor is Farage. However if our main parties do not listen to valid voter concerns, and this issue is one, I fear that we will also find our voters looking for people who they believe understands them. This issue is not yet in the public domain. It will be, maybe not this year but certainly next as the backlog of unemployed doctors and HCPs builds up. The sooner it is addressed the quicker barriers to our own doctors getting employment in the UK can be dismantled, fewer people will affected, the greater the scope for the current Government to deflect blame onto the Tories.

Needmoresleep the London consultant who first articulated the 'racist card' was not only not in trouble, they were trouncing the poster who called them a troll.

I'm astonished that you believe that xenophobia and racism is restricted to white people.

This thread has unpleasant undertones in that it's about a narrow self interest on the part of a small number of posters, masquerading as an important social issue and meanwhile is doing a disservice to the enormous contribution made to the NHS by foreign nationals. Indeed we wouldn't have had a NHS without the contribution of immigrants.