Junior Doctors Unemployment in August

[PurpleFairyLights]

Name changed but long term poster. Have a child that is in this situation with 100k of student debt.

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2025-05-07/bma-we-could-potentially-see-thousands-of-unemployed-doctors

Unbelievable this was allowed. Most countries protect their medical graduates.

@Needmoresleep can you help us with a letter?

That concerns me too. Why are BMA not doing anything? RCN are raising it as an issue. Very suspicious.

Most female doctors do not work part-time, that’s a nonsense. Certainly not the ones in training who are expected to move across the country. Also, when was this age of most doctors having a housewife? 1970s? Female doctors now outnumber male doctors in the UK, and women have outnumbered men in medical schools for years. Also, moving for work is not unique to medicine. I moved to a different continent to escape the stagnant wages in my profession in the UK.

@Crushed23 my experience of male doctors who are 50 plus is that their partners job takes the backseat. Most of my female friends who are medics all work part time.

If we talk about generational things - I am in my 40s and when I was growing up most medics did have a housewives esp. once they had kids and could afford a lifestyle. The model of medicine is a bit stuck in that era - i.e. when medics dont need to consider whether families are willing to move.

Medics my age some esp. surgeons do have wives who work part time as they have kids and simply cant manage full time and their partners schedules. We are in London and lots of medics dont want to leave precisely because there is more work around. But medics here are often the less well off partner - though I accept that a lot of medics are also in relationships with other medics.

Plus the discussion of female medics and ways in which this will change working patterns has literally been a major debate 15/20years ago. And my impression is that indeed most female medics I know do work part time esp. once they have kids. Thats not an anti-female message - I think the NHS expects too much from their medics. However, it is also the reality that twenty years ago - most medics were full time.

I can have a go tomorrow.

Currently at an event at the House of Lords. People are avoiding me because I keep bending their ears about the plight of newly qualified Doctors.

I would really welcome PMs containing useful stats or evidence.

What I think the NHS needs to do is collect their own knowledge base. A survey of current F2s asking about their plans and frustrations could be done quickly and cheaply. (My son is an academic econometrician specialising i macro labour markets so perhaps they could give some money to him.) This would give us all an information base.

The NHS might also start collecting data on applicant numbers for ordinary entry jobs. They don't at the moment, so probably don't understand why that tired F2 coming off night shift invests their time in sleep rather than dashing off another hopeless application.

The BMA are a pretty hopeless Union. Most doctors are busy doctoring which means that committees are vulnerable to activists. A weird approach to gender is one example. (That doctor in Fife and the BMA approach to Cass). Equally newly qualified doctors don't have much clout. Senior doctors (consultants and registrars) want more money for senior doctors. Those with interests in overseas training schools want more access to the NHS job market.

Policy makers should listen to the BMA but then make decisions that reflect UK interests.

My worry is that NHS trust are too addicted to the short term benefits of cheap, pliable, overqualified overseas labour. If the NHS is to survive into the medium/long term, especially in the areas under most strain, they need to provide career paths to those wanting to build life long careers here.

I will send you a pm in the next few days describing my DC's experiences. Currently working 3 hours unpaid overtime daily, by the time he's cycled home, eaten a batch cooked meal (if he's prepared), he settles down at 10pm after a 13 hour day to revise for MRCS part B and update his portfolio.

Sounds exactly like my DC. It is dreadful. The expense of exams too so could only afford one attempt at each exam. Having passed both did not help secure higher surgical training.

That is disgusting that they are not interested. Who will look after them if they have a cardiac arrest? Not the private sector.

Surely we should aim for exposure from Newsnight or Guardian?

In my experience there was little difference in knowledge/experience between IMG and UK graduates.

My DD has often had to teach the incoming IMGs, most much more senior than her, how the NHS works (or doesn’t). She’s had to translate before too (she is fluent in another language).

It is unbelievable that the unemployment of doctors is not front page news. The GMC seems to hate Doctors (loves PAs), and the BMA seems to not want to tackle these issues (I think Rob and Vivek did but not seen the new people being so vocal).

Our young doctors deserve better. Working ridiculous hours, being screamed at by bully seniors who seem to get off on having power, being treated with contempt by the press, being paid rubbish (£19 an hour for an SHO who might be the most senior Doctor on a ward at night). And now have the future taken away with unemployment. They knew it would be hard but they did expect to at least have a job. Somewhere, anywhere in the UK. Locum, JCF or training, most just want a job.

It should definitely be front page news. I remember when I was at university in the early 2010s medics had among the highest employment rate after graduation - how can things have changed so much in such a short space of time? What do the ones who don’t want to move to Australia/NZ do? Do they just go into other jobs?

I have been working on bullet points of the relevant issues discussed here that I can send you when completed.

With Keir's recent speech about training UK workers and reducing immigration the government may be prepared to reverse the 2019 decision that caused this problem. Surely a quick win?

No idea. Never understood why would want to go to Oz as they only offered jobs that Australian medics do not want.

Yes, the Oz trend puzzles me too. If Australia is prioritising its medics for jobs then surely the jobs that go to foreign doctors will be the ones the locals don’t want. Unless there’s such a shortage of doctors that desirable posts aren’t being filled?

I have always heard UK graduates get positions left by Australian graduates. Also my DC does not want to work in Australia.Trained to be a doctor to work in the UK.

I think that you can get a job in a perfectly reasonable part of Oz for a year or two (especially if you consider that generally these medics are without families yet etc), then more easily move to other locations. I have never got the impression it’s a struggle to end up in a place in Oz you’d like to be (source - married to a medic & several medic friends etc, have occasionally idly considered whether we should move to Oz).

however in South Africa you can absolutely only work in underserved areas & also struggle to have specialist qualifications recognised without a lot of jumping through hoops.

Yes, it certainly should be front page news. Perhaps Politics Live or Panorama too?

PLAB exams should be paused until the potential unemployment issues are addressed.

The PLAB is the licensing exam that IMGs undertake to practise in the UK. IMG numbers passing the exams in 2024 have gone up six fold since 2020. However, the GMC hasn't stopped running PLAB exams. Since the removal of the RLMT, these IMGs and the UKMGs apply on an equal footing for the limited number of posts available. There should be prioritisation of UK medics before bringing any new doctors from abroad but again there is a lot of resistance to this, for example, from highly motivated IMG voice and lobby groups.

https://www.gmc-uk.org/registration-and-licensing/join-our-registers/plab/recent-pass-rates-for-plab-1-and-plab-2

Also some academies connected to IMG lobbies offer courses that fast track IMGs into positions in the NHS with PLAB exemptions.

When the UK MLA was introduced for UK students, there were initial discussions about potentially abolishing PLAB and making all students (UK and IMGs) sit the same exams but then this plan was abandoned. Not sure why. The GMC just decided to keep the PLAB and make it MLA compliant. The PLAB is perceived to be easier than the MLA.

The jobs they can get in Aus and NZ are still better than being unemployed. And are often in smaller towns where there are already a lot of Btits. Less hours, more pay and sunshine are quite appealing when the alternative is the dole. And Aus seems to actually like Doctors and treats them well (leave on time, free parking, food provided).

Yes back in the early 2000s when my DH was struggling to get a surgical rotation he was offered a job in Aus. He turned it down for a fellowship post that came up. The town he was going to was hit by horric floods the next week but we still wonder whether he should have taken the post. Doctors just aren't really respected here in the UK anymore.

Yes, you can probably move to a better location after a year or two, but at the moment moving to Australia is effectively a one way ticket.

DD works in a relatively unpopular, largely rural, deanery. Most of her peers are local and studied at the local medical school. (Studying in England is a lot more expensive.) Going to Australia for a year or two post F2 was effectively a rite of passage, and an opportunity to have some different experiences. Some stayed but most returned.

Now it is an emigration decision. You can't get back. The Deanery really needs doctors who are happy to work in rural locations, who understand the local population, and who would expect to stay and build and continue their careers. But though health policy is devolved UK immigration law is not, nor are allocations for specialist training.

Already, because overseas recruited doctors often don't stay, Trusts within the Deanery are having to recruit from overseas all the way up to Consultant level. At this point a lack of NHS experience is a real disadvantage. As mumsneedwine suggested it is then not unknown for an F2 to have to question decision making of much more senior colleagues. I am now bending everyone's ears, so was recently talking to a Philippino nurse who has been in the UK for 22 years. He first complained that some newly recruited overseas nurses appeared to be lacking key nursing skills (catheters, cannulas), and then described having problems with a doctor who would not listen to a nurse's concerns about a proposed prescription. Worried that the proposed medication would kill the patient, he phoned the pharmacist and briefed him. The pharmacist then quizzed the doctor and refused to prescribe. The same nurse confirmed that a big lure was UK experience and British citizenship. This then enables much better salary rates in the Gulf than would be the case if you go directly from the Philippines, South Asia or Africa. So the UK becomes a training ground for overseas health sectors with the constant churn doing real damage to the culture, traditions, and long term viability of the NHS.

Genuinely never known a country less guided by ethical considerations than the UK.

What is very bizarre is that DD's Trust is recruiting heavily from Africa. Yet South Africa is recruiting people like DD from the UK. Not for the big cities, but for out of the way places.

Our young people are good enough for other countries but not for their own.

I am starting to wonder whether they are using immigration from some countries like India(who have nuclear capabilities) as a way to form an alliance. We will take your doctors etc if you have our back in a war.

Will the new visas for Indian temporary workers also have an impact?

Wasn't there a thread on this some time ago with many medics saying it is a competitive world. The advance of AI means there are bots that people sign up to which apply for jobs in bulk which has compounded the issue.

They also said not everyone has a seamless run though training and doing research taking Trust jobs for a year to gain more experience is very common and always has been. Also it is not cheaper to have overseas doctors, they are paid the same as doctors over here. This thread is repeating a lot of the misinformation of the last one.

Purple you seem to think just because your son wants to be a surgeon he should be a surgeon. He may not be ready his trainers ,may feel he needs more time multiple reasons. Not applying for other jobs because you think the competition is too great is not showing the resilience one would expect from someone hell bent on a career in surgery. It is highly competitive for a reason - it drives higher standards and higher standards mean better surgeons for the country.

The fee is £625 per exam on the web site today and it is tax deductible and the basic salary of a CT2 doctor is £49000 - this is an investment in their future - most would consider it a small price to pay.