Leading doctors are warning Jeremy Hunt that his plan to make the NHS “self-sufficient” with homegrown medics will not work and poses “a major risk” to the health service.
In a letter to the Guardian, the presidents of two of the profession’s medical royal colleges tell the health secretary that his move has demoralised overseas doctors already working in the NHS and could deprive it of the long-established supply of foreign medics upon whom it depends.
The intervention by Professor Jane Dacre, president of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), and Clare Marx, her counterpart at the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), is a direct challenge to Hunt, who unveiled his new approach to tackling the NHS’s lack of doctors at last week’s Conservative party conference.
The NHS in England would have all the home-trained doctors it needed by 2025 and end its reliance on medics who come from scores of other countries, he pledged.
“While the recent announcement by the secretary of state of 1,500 extra medical school places is welcome, as over a quarter of current NHS doctors are from overseas, the extra places will not in themselves produce a self-sufficient UK medical workforce and we will still need our overseas doctors,” Dacre and Marx state in their letter.
“The announcement has led to our colleagues from overseas feeling that they may not be as valued as UK doctors and is affecting morale. We cannot let this happen.”
They also warn Hunt that his plan could backfire because medicine is now “an international profession” characterised by “free movement of doctors around the world”.
Highlighting the important role overseas doctors perform in the NHS they add: “This model has served the UK and the NHS well for decades. Moving away from that model is a major risk to the success of the NHS.”
The RCP represents about 20,000 hospital doctors across the UK, both consultants and trainees, while the RCS represents 13,178 surgeons in UK-wide hospitals.
Hunt won widespread acclaim for his plan. However, while applauding his determination to tackle chronic understaffing in the NHS, medical organisations pointed out that the extra 1,500 newly qualified doctors a year it is intended to produce will not be ready to start treating patients for a decade or more, and even then are unlikely to prove enough on their own to meet the rising demand for healthcare driven by the ageing and growing population and rise of lifestyle diseases.
Dr Mahiben Maruthappu, the chairman of the UK Medical Students’ Association, has also voiced concern about Hunt’s plan. Contradicting the health secretary’s claim that many would-be doctors are being denied places at university, he said: “Some medical schools are actually struggling to fill their places, meaning that these ambitions may also not be practical. I also believe that creating a health service that is 100% self-sufficient, one that only trains homegrown doctors and one that doesn’t take people from overseas and vice versa, is bad for medicine and bad for patient care.”
Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association, endorsed Dacre and Marx’s views. “If the government’s plan is to train more UK doctors and stop recruiting from abroad, it will not address the staff shortages in any way. There simply won’t be enough doctors for the number of patients walking through our hospital and GP surgery doors.
“The reality is that training this number of extra doctors will not make the NHS self-sufficient by 2025. But the question should be whether we want or need it to be. The government should not underestimate the vital skills and expertise that overseas doctors bring,” he added.
Plan to end NHS reliance on foreign medics could backfire, Hunt told
