The new strategy to recruit and retain more NHS medics is badly needed but the ‘productivity puzzle’ shows how hard it is to deliver results for patients 🔎 Big Read by robhastings
One of the key elements of the new NHS long-term workforce plan is a
But if newly qualified doctors can’t face life in the NHS – or join but leave within a few years, before they’ve achieved optimal experience and skill levels – then all that additional training still won’t deliver the kind of productivity boost the health service needs. “At the moment, half of joiners to the nursing and midwifery profession are trained overseas, and about three in five joiners to the medical register are trained overseas,” Palmer tellsThese people are essential, he says. “We’re very grateful for them – where would the NHS be without them?”
In his book, Whitaker uses the example of “Alfie” – a GP he’s helped to train after he was recruited from an African nation, whose name he has changed to protect his identity. This is not because these “NHS-naïve doctors” are inferior clinicians, Whitaker underlines. He would suffer from the same problems in a role reversal.
With extra training, international recruits can and do get up to speed – but that takes time. Given that the General Medical Council has been registering more international medical graduates than UK-trained doctors every year since 2019, perhaps this is a key explanation for that productivity puzzle. And if the NHS is going to continue relying on so many foreign recruits for the time being, until more UK-trained recruits take up jobs, the drawback isn’t going away.
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