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.

Are the foreign trained Dr's better though? Does something need to be done ab0ut the quality of UK training? Is there something we are missing here?

I appreciate a workforce can't be judged on one example but I shall never forget the F2 I met in 2021 a couple of years ago. There were huge competence, nouse and empathy gaps.

I was telling one of my friends about this and they felt that this is the same as any other field - where you compete internationally. Except it is not as the government also funds medical school training via the NHS. Medical jobs are drying up also due to funding cuts. I don’t think people truly understand the situation. For example Wes Streeling recently said he will be creating more consulting spaces ao people can have more GP appointments. However the interviewer did not ask who the appointments will be with. I don’t think they will be with a GP but ancilllary medical staff, which is not usually what a patient needs.

There's no point writing directly to Wes Streeting, you have to write to your own MP and remember to include your address and postcode so they a) know you are a constituent and b) can reply to you to tell you what they've done about it.

Is a UK graduate always a home student? Or are we counting international students who study and graduate here too? Places for home students will be nonexistent in a few years if something doesn't change with university funding.

Lots of IMGs have a lot more experience as they're happy to apply for a training post after working at a reasonably high level in their home country as a way into the NHS. When you have people who have potentially worked for x years as a y speciality of course they have a huge advantage over someone who has just completed FY2. Its unethcial but better value for the NHS as well- pay less for more experience. They do it with nurses etc too, the amount of highly experienced foreign trained nurses stuck at band 5 for various reasons is exploitative, and it means this year lots of new UK grads can't secure jobs. More or less every other country prioritises home grads, but often when it gets flouted here people are quick to harp on about how exclusionary that is (even though it's acceptable everywhere else).

Like most things these days it has become too polarized; it's perfectly reasonable to appreciate the value highly skilled healthcare professionals bring to the NHS and also think its fair for UK grads to have priority in what is an unfair system anyway.

No. I am a recently qualified GP and I can say with confidence that, as a rule, international medical graduates required great deal more support to finish training than UK grads. Not just language; there is a massive cultural overlay in medicine that we don't always appreciate and is hard to learn. I met some truly amazing IMGs (and have huge respect for the challenge they put themselves through) but some really did need extra help.

I'm sorry you had poor F2. They exist and I hope training/performance management will help them.

Quite a few IMGs that i trained with have since left the UK too. I do not understand how the UK govt felt it was a good idea to welcome IMGs for limited training places for them to take their competencies elsewhere. How were our homegrown grads ever to get those training places? IMGs were welcomed due to the 'doctor shortage' we were experiencing, but as a PP said the issue is paying for the Dr's we need - there is still a shortage.

Having said all that, there was always a bottle neck for competitive specialties, and moving 100s of miles for a job on the next rung of the ladder was always an issue. Those things are not new and medicine has alwats been a difficult career in that sense. The difference is that in the past, doctors could take a second best (to them) option and those options are the ones now filled, due to competition with IMGs.

@witheringhighs that's helpful. Thank you.

I think that's why the assumptions that we should also prefer high skilled migration over low one is so erroneous. In practice it de-skills the local population.

However, that's true for all jobs and not just medicine. Medicine isn't special in that way - but would people be happy to put in similar restrictions for other professions?

The government paying for them is not an argument as the government invests in all graduates as most student debt is written off at government expense.

Quite a few IMGs that i trained with have since left the UK too.

It's been this way for a while, once they are signed off to work in the UK it opens many doors to more lucrative countries with health services that are more pleasant to work in. The 'stepping stone' mentality has definitely increased in recent years though and where i work lots of the IMGs are really honest about this and laugh about it which is disheartening although not surprising people do what's best for them at work.

That's not going to help though. They are wanting to privatise health services who will clearly go for the cheapest doctors available.

Shocking OP and against any common sense.

Some of the decision making among politicians and civil servants lack the reasoning skills of a 10 year old. They should all be fired.

The difference is that the NHS is very pro-active in sourcing healthcare workers from abroad, especially from countries on the red list (which brings up a lot of ethical questions) because historically they have been content with the relatively crap wages the NHS pays because compared to back home it's decent. There are far more hoops for people wishing to come over on a skilled visa and even more so an unskilled visa for both employers and employees in other sectors that it's not really on the same scale.

Its scandalous that our politicians think its OK to do this, not least the ethics of recruiting from other countries. I feel very sorry for our younger generations and can quite understand why they're giving up with the UK and moving to countries like Australia.

I am an academic and the government has also invested in my education and my profession also mainly recruits from abroad. I appreciate that the effects are tough but medicine isn't unusual. Why should we be happy to recruit academics but not medics from abroad?

@385nfwthat’s a good point re government writing off a lot of student debt. Which also meeds to stop. But that’s another argument.

Why do they usually recruit from abroad?

I work in Medical Workforce in a general surgery dept - once kept a job open for 24 hrs and had nearly 800 applications! We now open it up on a restricted basis first to enable people who have already expressed an interest to apply (sometimes doctors who have been doing clinical attachments in our Trust for example)

But back to the original point, it's awful that there aren't enough FY1 posts for the number of UK doctors coming out of med school. Mind you, last year, we had a couple of gaps in our Deanery places so surely they should open those up to doctors from other deaneries - lack of joined-up thinking! Don't know what the situation is yet for this August - waiting to hear from HR!

What a short sighted dumb ass decision.

Unless of course this is all part of the governments bigger plan to squeeze Physicians Associates in who are no where near suitable to replace Drs.

Is there not a petition somewhere for this ?

It's competitive crazy - in Australia they aren't allowed to take applications from out of country people until they've shown they can't recruit internally.
To the parents on the thread - look at university research fellow posts. Less money (no oncall) but look ok on the CV. Or if still very new to medicine I'd look at something totally different - finance? Civil service?. Moving 100s of miles for a consultant job is pretty common.

Thanks for this OP
Unemployed drs is an utter disgrace of a situation and I hope that your son or daughter finds something suitable soon.
I’m sure I read that the labour government have addressed this and that foreign trained drs are to be ‘deprioritised’ as of march 2025

Thanks @WitheringHighs for the reminder re how gruelling training is and has been for decades .

That’s insane

Why are so many foreign trained doctors securing roles instead of UK doctors though, apart from the early application by foreign recruiters? If the applications come through and the candidates don’t meat the criteria, they won’t be given the posts? The doctors in the article seem to get the chance to apply, but don’t make the cut.

Also is there some sort of mutual agreement across countries regarding pending up posts to doctors, which would mean that restricting employment to foreign trained doctors would mean UK trained doctors who want to move abroad might be hit with the same? From what I know, doctors in certain parts of Europe move over for a couple of years or so for training and then move back, to vary their experience? Do many UK doctors want the same, and would that be blocked by a change in the rules?

Has this happened in line with the new medical schools opening?

which would mean that restricting employment to foreign trained doctors would mean UK trained doctors who want to move abroad might be hit with the same?

This is already the case, the vast vast majority of countries already prioritise home students/residents.