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.

The other point is that the poorer countries where these nurses and doctors are coming from have invested significant government money into their education (which they are less able to afford) in order to look after the health of their citizens - for example Filipino nurses are not coming to the UK because the Philippines has run out of sick people.

By hiring nurses and doctors from poorer countries you are depriving the citizens of badly needed healthcare professionals .

How did you rack up 95k in debt?

While some overseas higher medical staff are brilliant, others are not, especially training in bedside manner. Personal experience of come in, you have x years to live, here's your chemo sessions, goodbye. This is a huge neglect/terrifying. Next oncologist, after he had been sacked, NHS trained, asking the question well my 2 years are up, now what do I do? Response, hey we can keep you going for years, didn't you know that?

At stage 4 cancer, the Nigerian doctor was vile, the impact of such dismissive care, ongoing for 2 years. This isn't racist, it's a personal experience about the difference of being trained in the Uk to some countries abroad. Having a qualification doesn't mean you're educated in how to deal with patients, especially if you can't speak the language well, even then there can be gestures of caring but nope, nothing, leave so I can see my next patient and make them as equally terrified, vulnerable and I don't care.

I’m so sorry. My dad had a similar experience looking after his brother with terminal cancer.

add in doctors with accents so thick they couldn’t understand and English so poor they couldn’t understand what he was saying either.

IMO we need to train up our own kids to be doctors and nurses instead of relying on immigrants.

It was the same for doctors until the Medical Prioritisation Act was passed this year.

https://medical.hee.nhs.uk/medical-training-recruitment/medical-specialty-training/important-update-medical-specialty-training-and-foundation-programme-2026-recruitment

I think this all the time. Why not employ UK doctors and nurses? Like you say I think the standard of doctor is going to be lower from some countries. Also, doctors and nurses with very strong foreign accents can be hard to understand, especially for older people.

Community nurses are autonomous practitioners too! They don’t automatically get bumped up a band!

Fees and student loans - 3 years worth

I’m a nurse. I got in on the very last year of the bursary, as it was my second degree I just wouldn’t have been able to make it work financially if I had had to take out another student loan. I think scrapping the bursary was a big mistake as prospective healthcare students are likely put off by the financial aspect and daunted by having to pay it back in what is (for most) not a generously-paid career. Also, many young, newly-qualified HCPs with no ties are heading to Australia and the Middle East to work; of the cohort of FY1 doctors that I worked with on the ward in my first couple of years as a nurse, most have completed their FY training and gone to work abroad.

AI has a lot to answer for, too, As a hiring manager, I receive about 80 applications for a role, and the vast majority are from overseas applicants. You can tell that most are generic applications sent to hundreds of jobs that have been written by AI or a recruiter (probably also using AI!) but because all the shortlisting criteria is met, I have to score them based on what I have read and they are invited to interview. Usually, the interview doesn’t match up to the application and the applicant is rejected because I work in a fairly niche field of healthcare that you need genuine interest in to succeed at interview. I’ve put the same Band 3 job out five times in the past couple of years because no matter how many seemingly perfect applications we receive, the actual interviews are never convincing enough to choose someone we actually want to employ. However, if you are firing applications at hundreds of jobs, you’re bound to strike lucky somewhere eventually.

It’s only actually England that scrapped the bursary

I also teach student nurses, medical students, FY2 doctors and GP trainees now as part of my current role. The majority of the med students and nursing students are UK-born, so the UK is still generating its own healthcare staff. A lot of my FY2 and GP trainees are overseas-trained; not sure if it’s just a coincidence as I train one of each for four months before they rotate elsewhere so I only see six individual qualified doctor trainees each year and not the whole picture, whereas I have three different med students every week!

I agree entirely. Especially doctors, nurses and midwives having to work a set number of years (minimum 5 years?) in lieu of paying off their student loans.

Many nursing students are ‘mature’ students with established lives and families, though. There were only a handful of 18 year olds on my course, most were a bit older and already had mortgages and kids. I’m in England, so I wouldn’t have been able to access the course without uprooting my entire life.

In wales if you take the bursary route nhs wales pays the fees and bursary (you can take a small loan if you want) but if you stay 2 years working in wales you dont repay the fees/bursary

Its not great and most people still have to work alongside the degree which is exhausting but it does help

Mature students are still entitled to the bursary - it’s not limited to 18 years olds

I qualified in my 30’s with 2 kids and single - majority of my cohort were mature students

Everyone should be asking this question.
Our young people are refused entry onto medical training despite being qualified. The whole "the NHS needs immigrants" is a damaging lie. For a start, if our country wasn't overflowing with both legal and illegal immigration we wouldn't need as many staff.
It's indefensible that our own people are being refused entry into these professions in favour of those from other countries even if the training was the same - which it absolutely is not. In many cases it's not even checked so they can come here with fake qualifications. It's not just the qualifications it's the language - and it's not just issues that the difference in qualifications and miscommunication causes between them and native medical staff - the difference in training and potential for miscommunication is there between immigrants from different countries too.
Immigrants are way overrepresented in malpractice cases, and that's even when many people will be scared of complaining due to fears of being accused of 'racism' - apparently a worse crime than knowingly endangering life.

I had a student midwife when I was in hospital on the maternity ward. It was her first week on wards but had worked as a qualified midwife in her home country but had to partially retrain to work in the NHS. She was brilliant, I joked with her that she yes women's bodies in the UK are different to her home country. She laughed and said it's more the processes and ward scenarios that were different as well as having different treatments options. She wasn't doing the full course, I think she said was able to start in the second year of the course.

I don't care where health professionals come from as long as they have a good grasp of the English language and can communicate clearly and empathetically. It seems to me that there is a significant issue with NHS induction and helping some recruits understand British culture and its many nuances.

To be honest the worst midwife communicators in my experience were chippy English women in their 20s. The midwives in their 50s (in the mid 90s) knew how to communicate. DD's birth compared like day to night, led by the kindest and most capable lady from Senegal.

Nurse here, our international staff are brilliant and frankly saved our staffing! Vast majority are phenomenal caring nurses with years of experience. Like our home grown there is a small minority who need some additional support to further upskill but wouldn’t say there are any more than those uk trained.

I didn’t say they weren’t. I meant that it’s not feasible for most to pack up their entire life and kids to go and start a course!