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.

In my experience not the case. So government is knowingly training doctors at UK medical schools at huge expense for Australian/NZ workforce? So decide to open UK training places to the world?

This narrative that is pushed is not what I have seen in practice. Most F2s I have worked with over the last year, in order of preference wanted the following:

1. Get into speciality training in the UK
2. Take a none training, clinical fellow role in the UK
3. Go abroad

Certainly the vast numbers applying to speciality training this year don’t fit with this idea that all doctors are buggering off abroad as soon as they are done with foundation training.

Still have to pay back loan. My DC 100k loan will have cost around 250 k as DC will be paying around 150 k in interest. Loans are accruing around 8% interest.

You shoukd start an official petition. This is a national scandal!

I will.

I don't understand why a Health Secretary does not have to be a doctor. They mostly do not have a clue about what really goes on and suspect a lot of stuff is kept from them.

The labour party have an A&E doctor as an MP

Reform of postgraduate medical education and training would be ££££. This will be completely unpalatable to the current Labour government, even if they didn’t originally create this mess. Employing PAs and pinching doctors from abroad who are way more qualified than the jobs they are doing is a lot cheaper and easier.

They want a pool of ‘forever SHOs’ - highly experienced doctors (ie who need minimal senior support, no need to employ more expensive registrars and consultants) who are stuck in the bottle neck for ages, doing the day in day out graft in admitting areas and on the wards.

It is not reforming postgraduate education just prioritising UK graduates fir training places.

Can you imagine the red faces in August when 20k doctors did not get a training number due 2019 change.

One year there was a danger that medical graduates would not get F1 posts and that ruffled a lot of feathers.

I

700 incoming F1s do not have a job for August. They have a placeholder - so they know what deanery but not the exact place. Or jobs. Last year some were told 2 weeks before their start date - they had to move 100s of miles away from friends and family, find somewhere to live and start work as a doctor. Looks similar this year. Anyone can apply from abroad for F1 too and it’s random.

@Watermelonices how can they be committed to work 10 years in the NHS when they can’t get a job ? Most would love the idea of a guaranteed job !

I did not realise it applied to F1 too.

A lot of potential medical students will not be prepared to study for 5 years and end up with 100k of debt. This along with falling birth rates could result in UK being reliant on non-UK medical graduates that may not want to stay long term.

One of my DC was going to apply to university to be a vet. It took a few stories of unemployed vets along with a real life example, for her to change direction.

A few reports this is in shopping so have asked MN HQ to move to AIBU

Genuine questions:
Are the BMA not concerned about this? why are they not highlighting this?
All I have read recently is the BMA potential for striking for more pay and not accepting the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman.
The BMA are the doctor’s union aren’t they?

I get your concern with this OP but any action will have more impact if it comes from actual doctors rather than the parent of a doctor. Unless you are a doctor too and I stand corrected.

@PurpleFairyLights But they are ok with doing that! The employment situation changes. It’s also not debt is it? No job = no repayments. There could well be changes in the future and the repayments are always based on salary. Always.

Can you explain what those myriad of reasons are? As the OP, possibly correctly, blames legal migration.

The BMA have been massively caught with their pants down on this one. They have heavily encouraged International Medical Graduates (IMGs) to join over the years without really seeing where this was all going. Needless to say, an organisation that has a large percentage of IMGs is going to struggle to convince their members that IMGs are potentially a problematic thing. They are really caught in a rock and a hard place to be honest, although they really should have been more on the ball years ago.

It is debt called Student Loan Debt. You have a yearly statement which shows your repayments, how much interest has accrued and how much you owe.

So while unemployed doctors will not have to repay student debt until start working again but what they owe will be increased as interest will continue to be added on.

These are very bright hard working people that have invested a lot in their career so will not be rejoicing in " no job = no repayment" . Your bar appears to be very low unlike these doctors.

Surely they need to care about the unemployed doctors?

This is not about IMGs already here but doctors applying from overseas surely?

I mean, I can’t answer for the BMA. You’d have to ask them.

NRTFT but its the same across healthcare. Nursing students due to graduate this september are being advised to delay applying for their PIN until they have a job confirmed so they can continue working as HCA's.

Its a direct result of over employment from overseas, across the board in the NHS.

https://thedoctor.bma.org.uk/articles/life-at-work/specialty-training-squeeze/

In 2023 UK graduates 59% of training posts and International Medical Graduates 41% of training places.

I don't know of any other country that would allow this to happen to their medical graduates.

@PurpleFairyLights - this is terrible. But after 4 years your DC isn't a surgeon surely?

DC has been a doctor for 4 years. Surgical training is 7-8 years. Currently completed 2 years of surgical training but needs another 5-6 years training to be a consultant.

That is dreadful. Why has this not been highlighted years ago.

This is a relatively new issue in nursing. Last year in my trust affiliated universitys, 40% of graduates didnt have a job to go to immediately, this year, i dont now the figures at the minute, but its expected to be higher. Nursing positions are all but filled, my trust, which is in the top 5 in teh country for size, has a handful of band 5 positions out, and comptetion is rife so the new graduates arent getting them. Theres no budget for jobs, as it was all used recruiting from overseas. Most areas are close to fully staffed, but not quite, but still dont have the budget to recruit.

Alot of nursing students are mature with children, this equates to around £70k of student debt, not to mention the 2300 of unpaid hours they have given to the NHS throughout their training, often not getting supernumery status, instead filling the position of HCA in wards and areas.

Its scandelous. Long gone are the days of a guarenteed job for doing your nursing training. When i qualified, a few years ago now, we as graduates picked where we wanted to work, placements were trying to sell themselves to students in order to have us pick their ward as there was such a shortage of nurses. Now, most dont have jobs.

As far as I can recall there are only jobs for 2000 consultants and g.ps every year.It has never been the case that every junior doctor will become a consultant and part of the problem now seems to be that the expectation among juniors is that they will all inevitably become consultants.
Medical school places have been increased, but there are no more senior jobs than there were before. I imagine that as a country we just can't afford not only more senior doctors but also all the hospitals etc that it would take to employ them. I don't suppose a petition will conjure up the amount of money required to employ them all as consultants.
Medicine will undoubtedly go the same way as law, where everyone with a law degree does not expect to work as a lawyer.