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.

There is the middle of nowhere, and there are the regional centres. Shepparton, Aulbury, Noosa, Towoomba, Gold Coast, Bendigo…..They are big towns, with arguably better lifestyles compared to the capital cities, with more affordable housing.

@PurpleFairyLights I remember when I was on nights back in the late 80's. August 1st came round and the usual major change happened but this was different!! the only british doctors were actually the consultants and there were only four of those, rarely seen on nights!! every single doctor be it jho sho or registrar was foreign!! all corners of the world, china, india, usa, australia!, germany!!!!! absolutely everywhere! the language was often very difficult to understand!!!

@oddandelsewhere you have a v strange way of looking at this. ‘Best’ means the doctor who understands the NHS and can communicate with patients knowing the limitations of the system. Eg people who have previously worked in the NHS.

Under your rules there would be no need for a cap on medical school places. Everyone could study it and only some would be employed. Be a waste of the £230,000 it costs to train each doctor but you don’t seem to care about that.

@Crushed23 there is NO aversion to living around the country. Most doctors will move anywhere there is a job - they have to every 6-12 months anyway. THERE ARE NO JOBS TO MOVE TOO.

They don’t want to go to Australia. It’s not a choice for most, it’s the only way to work.

Not sure people really understand what is happening in the NHS. Less clinical staff means less appts means longer waiting lists and more unnecessary deaths. I suppose people only sit up and care when it affects them.

@oddandelsewhere
I think it’s pretty common knowledge that law is a valuable degree and an LLB graduate has a variety of options in business, finance, etc upon graduation. People do law degrees all the time without intending to practice law. My daughter (might be) one of them, depending on where she ends up.

And anyway, last time I checked it wasn’t a simple matter to land a job in the UK as an non Brit international grad in any other field where there are hoards of qualified local candidates facing unemployment…. Or have I missed something?

You can strike out Noosa and the Gold Coast for affordable housing! The Gold Coast now sits at $1.2m median house price, second only to Sydney.

@W0tnow sorry, noticed the comment about sufficient teachers. There are not enough of them !!! We are having to recruit from abroad as no one applies anymore. Your kids are being taught by any warm body they can find these days. But at least no one dies if they are not qualified.

@W0tnow there are 3 times as many law students in the UK as lawyers. There is no cap on places so Unis just take students to make money. Medicine is capped to meet the needs of the NHS (12,000 graduates for 13,000 jobs). It’s just all gone a bit wrong the last few years

It’s almost as if the UK should be only recruiting internationally for professions in which there is a local shortage.

Oh, wait…

I used to work in recruitment many moons ago for an international company based in London. Law grads were highly prized. They ended up in marketing, finance, business development, M&A, some as in house lawyers. I know a few law degree holders who have never practiced.

@W0tnow being 'adequately trained' is not the same as being the best. If people trained abroad are better qualified then of course they should be employed rather than a mediocre British graduate. It is beyond belief that you would rather be treated by a worse doctor rather than a foreign one.
Do you know that the NHS has always hired middle grade doctors from abroad? Some stay after training and some go back to their home countries. The problem at the moment is that we have far too many junior doctors. It was always the case that many would not make it to consultant even when only the best students went to medical school, now that students with B grades and A levels in P.E seem to get in then many more will fall by the wayside. And yes grades are a predictor of future performance.
Expectations have been raised far too high. Do you know anyone willing to pay the amount of tax it would take to double the number of doctors? Or justify a ' no foreigners ' rule in one particular sector?
Oh, and try to keep your temper.

Many of the best international doctors are not coming to the UK. They may have done in the past but not any more. They too have read the news about the challenges within the NHS, the training and working conditions. Many of the ones that still come do so to enhance their CVs so that they can access medical jobs in Australia, NZ, etc. It's easier to do that once you have UK qualifications. In fact, many have been taking up GP posts here purely for that reason and leaving as soon as they qualify. Lots of discussion about that recently. This is going on while UK medical graduates are driving Uber, etc because they can't get a GP post.

Main cause of the huge increase in IMG numbers was the removal of the RLMT and the changes in 2021 (post Brexit) to the points based immigration system.

In India the working conditions are much worse than the NHS and there has been a huge explosion of Indian private medical colleges. Unfortunately there are not enough training posts in India after medical school to support all those graduating in India so they look to pay academies or recruitment agencies to go abroad for training. Many come here perhaps as it's the easiest country to get a job as an IMG. Also IMGs are on an equal footing as UK medical graduates. The salaries for senior doctors in some South Asian countries are several hundred pounds a month. Yes, pay is low in the UK but lower in their home countries. That's why they are prepared to come here and train. Many then leave with coveted UK qualifications to pursue jobs globally. Others stay, wait until kids finish uni and leave once they become consultants. Often back in their home countries, at that level they often have chauffers, maids, chefs and get to be close to family and friends. Some IMG consultants have been saying, given the current NHS working conditions, they don't see the point of staying in the UK and training their juniors when they can have a better quality of life back home. I wouldn't be surprised if their exodus may be contributing to the dwindling number of consultants in the UK.

The international doctors that came decades ago when NHS conditions were better stayed, trained their juniors and settled here having had a better experience overall. Out of these, some IMGs however have established powerful lobby groups central to NHS workforce planning. They contribute to workforce decision-making often protecting IMG interests so that new IMGs don't face the discrimination and the challenges they faced in their professions when they started out. They have established training academies to fast track new IMGs into NHS jobs and support new IMGs. Lucrative businesses too. By having a sponsorship licence from the GMC, the whole process of IMG recruitment is smoother. I imagine all this reduces training capacity for UK doctors. Not sure whether the impact of all this on the NHS budget and the training of UK medics is being monitored.

Prioritisation and training of UK doctors, including IMGs already here should be the way forward. Bringing in new recruits while the ones here are facing unemployment is the wrong approach.

Because it costs about 270k to train a doctor to the point of being a junior doctor, the training given is very specialised to medicine where as other degrees can be used in many different roles and it uses up the precious time of senior doctors.

The analogy to other degrees would come if aspiring medics did a three year medical sciences degree which was no more expensive to run than a biology or chemistry degree and some were then not selected onto the clinical course.

Some countries do operate this system. However no countries I am aware of offer intensive and expensive clinical training to people without then prioritising their own trainees for speciality training.

I’m not sure what’s made you think I’ve lost my temper? Have you have confused my exasperation with temper? Or you’re trying to get a rise out of me? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. ;-)

Well, yes, I imagine a FY2/3 is adequately trained? I mean, I used the word ‘adequately’ deliberately. They are ready to start specialty training, the UK has plenty of them. And it seems that plenty will be out of a job soon. The current system seems to favour vastly over qualified overseas candidates. The NHS doesn’t NEED overqualified candidates for these roles. They need qualified candidates. The UK has an over abundance of them. That they educated, and paid for. And yes, I know that the NHS has hired from abroad in the past.

And there we go again with the feigned outrage at the racism (that isn’t actually there).

@mumsneedwine honestly, best, when describing a doctor does not mean someone who 'understands the NHS and can communicate knowing the limitations of the system'. Consultants aren't stupid, of course they can do that but essentially what they are best at is accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. My husband's (NHS cosultant) secretary is good at the communication and understanding the system, but not so hot on diagnosis.

On numbers, I believe quite the opposite of what you say. Student numbers should be capped at a very much lower level and only the most academic should be accepted. Unless immigration is banned entirely it doesn't seem likely that NHS trusts will stop hiring IMG 's, so the way not to waste money is not to train so many people who don't have much chance of progressing.

Medical graduates essentially have a science degree , or I would hope they do, so they should be able to find employment in many other scientific fields.

UK gradiate numbers are capped at around 12000 a year to match number of F1 places and specialty training vacancies two years into the future.

The UK government allowing the system to be flooded by IMGs is causing this problem.

It really is not difficult to understand

@PurpleFairyLights I understand perfectly. The reason there are 12000 graduates is not because that's the number of jobs there are, it's because they were a money making scheme for universities. What you don't understand is that there never was a time when every junior doctor progressed at every point in the system. There has to be a way of getting rid of the worst ones. It's possibly a bit brutal, but a medical degree never guaranteed a lifelong medical career and at the moment because of over supply more will miss out.I
There also was never a time when there were only UK graduates working as junior doctors.

What do you mean by normal working hours?

Long nights over a weekend, which is what my daughter is doing. Staying late because the consultant is late starting their ward round. Commuting to smaller hospitals over a wide geographical area. Taking calls from funeral directors and doing mandatory training in your own time. No personal development time.

I assume you are in England, presumably in a nice sheltered bit of a London teaching hospital and not aware that health is a devolved issue with different contracts in the UKs different nations. Nor aware that your colleagues elsewhere are stretched to breaking point.

The "best" as you define them, don't want to take up training posts in rural areas. F2s working in those areas as well as more senior colleagues, don't have time for research, writing papers, entering competitions and so on. They are too busy picking up the load caused by unfilled training posts. So they won't have the super full academic CVs that would allow them to achieve a training number that in turn would allow them to apply for a training post.

You may not consider them good enough, but most of us would prefer being treated by these bright capable resilient and dedicated young people to an academic doctor with limited hands on experience of the NHS coal face.

Or are you just setting out to be rude/divert the thread.

It’s scandalous to suggest that doctors who have passed their medical exams (with its very high pass rate) might not be up to the job and should therefore throw away their £100k degree and 5-6 years, and do something else instead.

The government has a responsibility to manage workforce planning more efficiently.

https://thematchguy.com/state-img-license-practice-without-residency-international-doctors/

Just posting this here - several states in the US are now allowing IMGs (international med grads) to practise without additional licensing requirements.

Would this pathway to medical employment be attractive?

Maybe if they made sure UK medical graduates had a training post first.

They are doing it due to shortages but here is a different matter.

It's almost as if you've forgotten what the NHS is and what it's there to do.

A reminder - it's a national healthcare service funded by the government. It serves the entire population of the United Kingdom, offering free at point of service healthcare to everyone needing it.

This healthcare is delivered not by lawyers or arts graduates but by graduates of medical schools.

The government has a responsibility to ensure adequate levels of appropriately qualified medical professionals to meet the healthcare needs of the population, which relies on the NHS to deliver that service.

HTH.

It's an option.

All is not lost for graduates of UK med schools.