To think the BMA have misjudged with another doctor's strike? Thread 2

[Locutus2000]

Rolling this over as people still seem to have something to say but no new poll.

Original post

AIBU to think the BMA have misjudged with another doctor's strike?

Last year they got more than anyone else in the NHS along with an improved deal. Nurses and other AHPs received lower rises.

BMA have just announced another 'resident' doctor strike continuing to chase pay restoration to 2008 levels.

Having just had the major win with changes to IMG prioritisation and the clamp-down on PAs it feels a bit tone-deaf and I can't see Streeting going for it.

Very few UKMGs move abroad permanently. Possible a couple of years in Oz.

UK will be prioritising its own graduates as it invested in them. Bad mouthing UKMGs will not stop that.

Other countries need to make it beneficial for their own medical graduates to remain looking after the people that paid for their medical training.

This hybrid system does not work and remained for longer than it should have as it was under the radar until 22000 IMGs flooded the specialty training application process in 2025.

@PurpleFairyLights it's unbelievable that anyone is claiming that there has been no bad talking of UKG. It's been said that medical education in this country is 'dumbed down', that all but a handful of medical schools produce sub standard doctors and that home trained staff are not as good as IMGs. I don't know why? But many posters, some who are consultants or involved in WP have also said that's it's the widening of the social strata of doctors that has caused the strikes. It was said that the private educated wouldn't strike as far too dedicated (or don't really need to work to live maybe).

It's been horrible reading the disparaging and patronising comments. Not by you @poetryandwine but by many many others.

It's relevant that international students, who choose to come here at 18 to train, as they believe they can learn more, and many want to stay forever, can not now do so as they can't get a job after F2. Whereas their countrymen, who trained at home, take those jobs.
Why ? How is this fair ?

Again, who has badmouthed UKMGs?

What leads you to believe that the UK will be prioritising its own medical graduates? Not that I am opposed to this.

Again, what are grounds for believing IMG will not stay?

I want to see the whole system reviewed by a neutral party because there are many disparities.

You will not be seeing that. UK will be prioritising its own medical graduates. It is government policy now.

I suggest you do some reading rather than expect others to explain things for you. You can start with articles in The Guardian The Independent and The Times. Be careful there are a lot on here that have been rubbishing UKMGs. Ask yourself why.

Why do you think the UK should continue allowing IMGs to compete on an equal footing to UKMGs? We are the only country in the world that does this and leaves our own medical graduates unemployed.

You need to start waking up to this reality. 63% of specialty training applications came from IMGs in 2025.

No more consultant posts though, so the best and most able will still bag the top spots. Just as they should. The same people getting the same jobs.

For goodness sake just DM/ PM her then. No need to announce it to the entire world.

I've lost count of the conspiracy theories on this thread. They're as fanciful as so much of the rest of the nonsense is.

I am unfamiliar with the rule regarding visas, but I don't think it would be a problem.

The "IMG" issue makes for good soundbites, but given the well documented training and retention problems in this country, immigration has to be seen as advantageous, providing the standard is set high enough. This is simply achievable via PLAB, and certainly less contentiously than raising the standard of UK graduates.

Medical school places are, by popular assent, headed towards 15,000 p.a.. A rough and ready calculation shows that there are about 3000 training places for them p.a. and a similar number of GP and consultant vacancies. Foreign graduates will have relatively little effect on an individual's progression prospects.

On the question of whether, foreign graduates stay after obtaining posts here, the GMC workforce report shows that you were correct to point out that UK graduates also leave. In fact more UK graduates leave to Australia and NZ than foreign graduates leave to their countries of origin each year.

This IFS paper adds a little further detail, although it is very ethnicity orientated, Ch 6 contains some figures for foreign graduates:

https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-01/IFS-Report-R294-Ethnic-diversity-of-NHS-doctors%20%281%29.pdf

None of that is true.

Find one quotation, or cease with the accusations.

Info

Info

There are too many as you know on this thread and two other threads. These threads are open for anyone to see. The attacks on UKMGs have been appalling.

UK-trained doctors ‘to get priority for jobs’ in Streeting’s 10-year NHS plan - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-doctors-nhs-10-year-plan-streeting-b2779942.html

Then between you, you should have no difficulty finding one.

Okay here's one from part one of this thread.

TheFancyDuck · 20/07/2025 09:08

To be fair, Pure, 'the type of people we are educating' are much less likely to be privately educated now. When they were privately educated they applied for jobs rather than complaining that there weren't any and they didn't strike with tedious regularity.

Why would I bother? You don't get to dictate what I do. I am aware that you can read. You know there are masses of them.

Are you asking me to do a compilation for you?

Everyone that has been so unpleasant about UKMGs should be ashamed. Attacking bright, hardworking young people in such a shameless manner.

Ridiculous there are some appalling posts over the last 3 threads.

Yes, thanks for this. I have now found several of these articles also. However the announcement of the details had been expected momentarily for nearly two months now with BMJ activists confidently predicting the outcome.

I have not seen details of the mechanism: specifically, will immigration law be revised to take doctors off the priority list? No source I’ve just looked at discusses this. Hansard has an interesting discussion in Lords about the new policy where Andrew Lansley has pointed out the risks in this.

The Hansard discussion also makes reference to an ongoing review of postgraduate medical training being conducted by Chris Whitty and Stephen Powis that has not been mentioned on this thread. Perhaps HMG is waiting to see what the review recommends.

You are ignoring what Wes Streeting has said. There is no way this is going to continue.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wes-streeting-government-bma-general-medical-council-labour-b2774826.html

The references to ‘Wes’ from PP have reminded me of an amusing anecdote from when I lived in America.

Wanting to learn the nation’s ways, I bought an etiquette book by Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners. Ms Martin got her start as the society correspondent for the Washington Post during the Kennedy administration.

In discussing why name dropping is usually a bad idea, she related how many people wanted to be known as friends of the charismatic (whatever else you might think of him, that seems to be a widespread opinion) young president. So they would address him as ‘Jack’ even in formal social settings, such as receiving lines and state dinners.

One Cabinet member who abstained from this practice, always using the title Mr President except informally, was the Attorney General - who happened to be the president’s brother.

It is really really strange. The other threads were far worse for UKMG bashing.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/02/nhs-in-england-told-to-slash-recruitment-of-overseas-trained-medics