AIBU to question relying on overseas-trained NHS staff over training our own?

[Wingedbat]

its often talked about that we need immigration for staffing the nhs, but I’m wondering how much of a good idea for two main reasons.

1. How can we be assured that they have as strict protocols and rigorous training as we do here?

(According to the guardian 63% of drs who are struck off have been trained overseas)

“A study finds over 50% of surgeons and GPs working in the UK, but who trained abroad, would fail exams set at the UK standard.” sky news.

Wouldn’t it be better to train our own drs, nurses, midwives?

2. There are not enough jobs for our own drs/nurses/midwives.

“Half of resident doctors finishing foundation training say they have no job secured for next month, according to a major survey from the BMA“

I believe the issue is the same for nurses and midwives.

I can only assume it comes down to cost, so they can pay them less. But this isn’t ethical or cost effective in the long run. I don’t really see too many people talking about this aspect specifically, but I see a lot of people saying we NEED immigration for the nhs. I don’t think we do, it’s not an ethical or sustainable practice.

I agree with the points on this thread and would have thought this is where a Labour Govt would excel; seems to me the Tories were trying to underfund and destroy the NHS so of course the NHS was forced to look overseas.

Same goes for doctors - if we need them let's fund them, give them study at a cut price and ensure they are committed to it for 5-10 years or something.

There simply are not enough people training to be nurses. It's a 3 year degree course. There used to be a bursary which covered some of the costs but that was removed in 2017 so nursing students have to fund the course in the same way as other students.

We've never trained enough doctors here. About half of all doctors registered with the GMC trained overseas.

This is quite deliberate from the medical profession. By declining to train the numbers we need, their value is kept artifically high. It's why a salaried GP in the NHS is paid abøut twice that of one in France.

We used to pay student nurses - back in the last century, when I trained. It wasn’t a degree course, and we were counted as members of staff, not supernumerary staff, on the wards, and we learned by doing.

I know that nursing is a more technical and high powered profession now, and a degree is necessary, but we should be at least subsidising the costs of getting that degree, in order to encourage people to go into the profession.

This. I worked in the NHS for over a decade (not as a nurse but as an allied health professional) - I left and I'd never go back now and I wouldnt advise anyone to go into it. We were constantly short staffed, the pressure was immense and the pay was bloody pathetic for the level of responsibility we had.

It's all very well saying more brits should go into it but why would they considering all the stress of it? why should they?

Nobody wants to be a care worker. It pays minimum wage and is mostly zero hours contracts with some terrible pay and conditions. It is not unusual for carers to not be paid for the time spent getting form one appointment to the next. It's also not a job anyone can do. It involves working with elderly and vulnerable people.

This. When Tony Blair increased the number of universities training doctors in the early 2000s he faced opposition from the BMA. They had to give out some very substancial pay increases to GPs and consultants get the BMA to agree to it.

The premise of this thread is misleading as the numbers recruited from abroad has dropped massively over the last couple of years due to general recruitment freezes and being able to recruit from the UK. Most overseas staff now working here did not arrive recently, they will have been here 2+ years.

The exception is medicine, because it costs a lot post grad to train specialist doctors. It remains more cost effective to recruit more senior medics (consultants, surgeons) internationally rather than training UK ones.

The numbers have dropped but trusts are refocussing their efforts to get the numbers back up again. Since Brexit the focus moved from Eastern Europe to Africa and Phillipines. Now because of the change in governemnt policy the focus is moving to India and Pakistan.

In my trust, we haven’t recruited specifically from abroad for the last two years. We take in 2 cohorts of newly qualified midwives in September and February. It’s rare that band 6 midwife jobs come up
unless they are specialised roles or specific teams. We do take overseas midwives on the preceptorship programmes, which have slightly different requirements to pass. The majority have been nurses for a long time prior to training as a midwife and that has massive benefits over standalone midwifery new graduates.

To whoever asked the question about why are they allowed to qualify if they aren’t good enough for the job? Two reasons. A tiny number have fallen under failure to fail, and the rest have passed all their individual competencies under direct supervision but being good at individual skills does not make you a good midwife on the ground. People will say interview pressure can knock some people but being a safe and effective midwife means you have to be able to work well and safely in sometimes extremely pressured situations. If you can’t answer questions about your basic knowledge or scenarios in front of two interviewers, how are you advocating for a woman to a team of doctors who don’t agree with you, in an emergency situation? It takes a certain kind of person to be a midwife (and I imagine a nurse too) and holding a midwifery degree does not make you a midwife in my opinion.

These stats are pretty alarming!
"I think this is important. The government wants to PAY companies £5,000 to reimburse visa costs for each foreign worker they hire! so, I thought we'd dig into just some of the 'skilled' worker roles the government has approved, that British people could easily do between March 2024 and March 2026.

At a time when unemployment is rising, this is just a short list of 156,873 JOBS British people including graduates did NOT get and overseas visa were issued.

From the Home Office’s own visa data.

▪️34,274 farm workers
▪️21,738 horticultural workers
▪️14,277 elementary agricultural workers
▪️6,502 agricultural and related trades
▪️6,842 generalist medical practitioners
▪️6,047 programmers and software developers
▪️4,205 food preparation and hospitality workers
▪️4,193 care workers and home carers
▪️2,903 nursing professionals
▪️2,895 engineering professionals
▪️2,391 sales, marketing
▪️2,257 teachers
▪️2,000 sales and business development managers
▪️1,509 mechanical engineers
▪️916 marketing, sales and advertising directors
▪️885 construction and building trades
▪️876 advertising and marketing roles
▪️801 retail and wholesale managers
▪️775 marketing and commercial managers
▪️768 shopkeepers and sales supervisors
▪️714 vehicle trades
▪️671 office managers and admin supervisors
▪️638 business sales executives
▪️504 mechanics and electricians
▪️466 butchers
▪️377 restaurant and catering managers
▪️261 retail and wholesale sales supervisors
▪️240 carpenters and joiners
▪️238 office managers
▪️235 catering and bar managers
▪️177 secretarial and related occupations
▪️166 electricians and electrical fitters
▪️145 sales administrators
▪️128 book-keepers, payroll and wages clerks
▪️103 customer service managers
▪️74 hotel and accommodation managers
▪️74 bakers and flour confectioners
▪️67 housekeepers and related occupations
▪️64 hairdressing and beauty salon managers

Westminster is not listening! and is allowing Britain to import labour for jobs British people could be trained to do. Chefs? Butchers? sales staff? bookeepers? shopkeepers? Farm workers? Mechanics? Hospitality staff? seriously???

Why are employers allowed to say there is a “shortage” of skills when there clearly isn't. And why is the government incentivising foreign work visas we dont need? 🚨

The NHS is underfunded. They can’t find jobs because the NHS is cutting jobs and currently has a hiring freeze so vacancies go unfilled.

On a side note 7.5% of our ‘own’ graduates are foreign students.

@Whatifitallgoesright the bulk of the 156k jobs you listed are temporary seasonal agricultural jobs. They’ve always used migrant labour for this. If you cancel the visas like we did for Covid you will have the crops rotting in the fields and grocery prices going up.

The rest are a few hundred here and there and that covers 3yrs, you can’t really argue that 2,000 programmers per year are going to make a huge difference to unemployment in the millions.

I am out of the NHS. No more thank you but my trust was very happy to employ non-British staff.

Many from overseas did not know their rights and worked much harder than British staff.
Incidentally there are jobs in the NHS that few Brits actually want to take in wards and they are filled by non-British staff.

True, the conditions are awful, but just hiring people who will be willing to work in terrible conditions will ultimately lead to poor health care in general?

Of course it will.

Is it because I’m specifically talking about medical jobs?

so everyone globally is training doctors, then hiring doctors from overseas? That’s madness, but not surprising I suppose!

Is there anything to be done, or is it just inevitable? 😬

And how can that poster tell they’re not good enough just by an interview if the trust doesn’t employ them? Maybe they’re just bad at interviews?

Yes, I saw her post. Apparently her daughter had spent years training to be a midwife and there were no jobs for her year group at the end of it, plus they were in a load of student debt, it’s devastating. I just can’t wrap my head around it.

Yes, it’s absolutely not a comment on the individual people. Just on the system that seems so nonsensical.

it’s seems like madness that there aren’t enough jobs for people trained in these roles, especially as we hear all the time about lack of drs/nurses/midwives so young people may think it’s a great thing to train in. And then at the end they are left with debt and no job.

If you improved working conditions you would keep the good staff or employ good staff.
I am never to work for NHS again. I don't think we have seen the last of deterioration. it will only be worse. Or it's of course my view.

It is a bizarre system. My relative’s care home is staffed almost exclusively with men and women here on visas. The majority of these workers have brought their families to live in the UK and we as a country are therefore paying for the families to go to school and use public services while the person working is on minimum wage. So it’s costing far more as a country to do this. Why not double the wage for the carer job? As a country we would be quids in surely by employing someone who already lived in the UK?

Because all of the care home sector is a totally private market driven by free market principles. The big corporations behind the care companies could not care less what the impact is on the overall country or on individuals. They are there to make money and keeping labour costs low helps achieve this. In fact the board members would swiftly be booted out of their roles if they weren't making money because the share holders demand it. We have privatised profit making in many sectors and risks are still held my the state .....Bonkers... same applies to children's homes, water, food....Not everything could or should be resolved by market forces....

I’m baffled. I hear some nurses and midwives, and doctors for that matter, are coming out of training without jobs being available. Crazy.

Yet I go in the hospital to see family and a high % of the staff (from those serving food, to the doctors) have a foreign accent - sound like they’re from Africa for example.

What is going on? Do the British not want to work the unsociable night shifts? I don’t know. Those from outside the UK definitely know what hard work is.