Thousands of doctors ‘planning to leave NHS and move abroad for better pay’

29 comments

1. Good.

   The only way we fix the UK is to bring its economy in line with USA.

2. Im not sure how accurate these surveys are sometimes. As NHS admin we have staff saying there going to leave the NHS as there fed up. Most rarely do or just move within the NHS

   Its very easy in a survey to say yea im moving abroad. In reality thats potentially taking your kids out of school, your partner finding a new job and losing all close contact from friends and relatives

3. Not working in the NHS but I intend on doing the same. I’ve found the gloom of the UK has a genuine effect on my head, when it’s a nice sunny day I love it here but it’s just so drab and gloomy the majority of the time. And even when it is warm, buildings aren’t built here to cope with it.

4. We’ve been saying for years we need a massive public debate around what we want from the NHS but nobody wants to hear what needs to be said

   Most people don’t want to see cuts or changes to services, competence or quantity of staff or reduction in estate so there needs to be more financing

   My opinion is that we should ask those using the bulk of services (>60yrs) who are wealthy to contribute more

5. I know eight people (that I can remember!) currently training to work as nurses or doctors in the NHS, and they all plan to move to the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand

6. But they have enough money to money to another country and set up a new life …while the rest of the UK pay huge taxes to support the NHS spiralling costs

7. I can’t blame them. The NHS is quickly becoming one of the worst ranked health care systems in the modern world.

   I think it really needs to slim down on what it takes responsibility for. It’s too heavy involved in social care. Family’s use hospitals to drop off elderly relatives they are tired of looking after.

   I believe the NHS should only be involved in life saving care. Beyond that they should be saying ‘’not our problem”.

   As tax payers we deserve value for money and timely critical care. Is bogged down with things it shouldn’t be involved in – in my personal opinion.

8. I quit a few months ago. Not going abroad, I’ve just given up on being a doctor.

   It really is that bad.

9. If Labour continues their privatisation of the NHS, I wonder if that will make doctors stay?

10. Where are they going? France, Germany, Spain? 

    Or no… those countries pay too little for their liking, I guess they’ll be heading to the US where one has to pay with an arm and leg for medical attention.

11. Doctors and nurses etc.uni fees should be removed in exchange for newly qualified doctors and nurses in exchange for rhem working in the NHS for 10 years. Then we should pay them better.

12. Can all the docs let me know when you find somewhere good to go as I’m coming too!

13. There was a wonderful discussion on LBC about doctors moving: a medic (GP) who had moved to Australia said he was working about 10 fewer hours per week and earning 30% more, whilst his training costs were being fully paid. Another caller, a woman, worked in emergency medicine and was truly distressed at the standard of care in the NHS, she mentioned an elderly patient who’d been sitting in a chair for 20 hours, in his own urine. She was mid 30s, with kids, and was planning to move to Nee Zealand, with her husband, also a doctor. She mentioned in the past 5 years 30% of her depts most senior staff had left. She mentioned her workload, pay and state of the NHS had just worn her down.

14. Don’t work for the NHS but did the same in 2018. Despite the extreme home sickness, a good decision overall.

    Nobody seems to want to invest in people in The UK, just employ unicorn candidates and not train them. Where I am now I’ve been able to completely retrain and have been invested in.

15. Almost everyone I know who trained as a GP no longer wants to work as one. Partially due to how terrible the conditions are, partially due to the fact that many of them were pushed towards it by parents rather than it being their choice of career.

16. I’d like to thank everyone who voted for the tories the last 14 years. This is your mess, and I hope you feel the most pain from it. You are xenophobic, scared, insecure little people. You’ve bought this country to its knees for generations all because you don’t like people who look and talk like you.

17. NHS employees have taken a +30% real terms pay cut since the Tories came in, with pay rises being either frozen or well below inflation.

    Newer contracts also pay a smaller percentage for unsocial hours and forced overtime, and none of the added bonus payments (late meal break payments etc) have risen with inflation either.

    Meanwhile house prices, fuel prices, food prices etc have all shot up.

    Not to mention the NHS workload has increased as people live longer, are more unhealthy, require more care, and other local services have been cut.

18. This might be my ignorance at play but if you are licensed as a doctor in the UK do you not need to re-license or whatever in a new country?

19. I don’t blame anyone leaving the UK to better themselves, the UK is not a easy place to raise a family or have a good life.

20. Wow, amazing how these insurance based healthcare systems can pay their staff so much more, with lighter workloads, and provide better outcomes for patients!
    Haha man that’s crazy, probably not worth looking into though.

21. What does anyone expect? We’re becoming a backwards shithole of a country what educated person with common sense would want to stay here.

22. I have been “planning” to do the same for years. Then I remember my life is here, my family is here, my friends are here, most other countries have their own share of problems which are far worse than here and moving your entire life abroad is not something to be taken lightly.

23. When are we going to grow up and admit the NHS healthcare model isn’t working? Privatisation is needed.

24. The principle sociological mechanic underpinning this is personality. If people are more Agreeable, they value helping other people more than they value helping themselves (getting paid). There are tons of movers and shakers in business, and highly qualified (sometimes to even doctorate level) of people within finance and economics that seem to completely misunderstand, and often deny the existence of this, or at the least underplay it.

    To end up on a doctor or teacher career path, you need to be fundamentally agreeable in the first place. We behave like this isn’t the case, but the people making that accusation are themselves disagreeable, they are people that think everyone else is out for themselves. These people don’t take these careers, and tolerate such conditions if they were motivated by money or material things over anything else.

    There comes a point where people literally cant live, and that is the point of failure, but if they can just about get by, then they will never ultimately challenge this in any meaningful way.

25. How many of these are foreign doctors vs British doctors?

26. Can’t blame them tbh. I’m on a band 2 pay rate so technically (due to the latest rise for min wage) that’s the same as my payband. I could do a job without the stress, constant training updates etc etc instead of carrying out invasive medical procedures for the same wage. Never looked hard for another job before but I am now

27. Doctors have been leaving for other countries for decades, this isn’t a new phenomenon.

28. I would encourage ANY doctors to go get better money overseas. The British public don’t deserve their skills or dedication after the piss taking over Covid & voting tory for 14 years.

    Call it learning the lesson…

    I’m tired of the mega left wing too refusing to accept that private hospitals will need to be used to help get the waiting lists down. If labour win the election & even if they put 20,000 people through free medical training, you’re still looking at 20 years before they have an effect.

29. I wonder why there are so few private clinics in the UK, compared with other countries? Surely if the cost is not too exorbitant, many will be willing to pay to see a doctor faster ? And the doctors will have better pay too. Feel like killing two birds with one stone to me