NEWS: Mass doctor exodus hits NHS hard

As reported by GP Online, a new BMA report reveals that up to 23,000 doctors have left the NHS prematurely in just one year, costing billions and exacerbating healthcare crises

The cost of replacing these doctors is estimated at between £1.6bn and £2.4 a year – and rising numbers of doctors planning to leave could drive this figure as high as £5bn a year, the BMA report says.

It highlights reversing years of real-terms pay erosion, improving working conditions, action to end discrimination and to develop and support staff better as key factors that must be tackled to reverse the exodus.

The report estimates the minimum cost of replacing a salaried GP who moves abroad at £295,000 based on a combination of medical training costs for a new GP, the cost of locum cover while a post is vacant, and costs linked to a loss in productivity while a new doctor beds in.

BMA representative body chair and workforce lead Dr Latifa Patel said: ‘It’s no secret that the NHS does not have enough doctors to meet our patients’ needs, and the ones that we do have are increasingly saying they do not want to stay.

‘The negative effects are there for all to see – near-record waiting lists for treatments, overwhelmed services consistently missing A&E and cancer targets, exhausted staff working themselves to the point of burnout just to plug the gaps.

‘If this has so far not been enough for the Government or policymakers to take the issue of retention seriously, then we hope seeing the staggering sums of public money needed to replace doctors who leave early will make them sit up and listen.’

The findings come after a GMC report warned earlier this month that more than a fifth of GPs are likely to move abroad in the next 12 months, with the profession found to be more discontented than any other branch of medicine.

Meanwhile, BMA polling earlier this year found that just 38.4% of GP registrars planned to work in UK general practice when they complete training. Many of these doctors training to be GPs planned to move abroad to work.

Dr Patel warned that reversing real-terms pay cuts for doctors and ending ongoing pay disputes were vital steps towards improving retention. She said: ‘Only by valuing doctors appropriately in the UK can we hope to prevent them from leaving for more competitive roles abroad or outside the NHS.’

The BMA England GP committee wrote to health service officials earlier this month to warn that the profession was now in dispute with NHS England over the 2024/25 GP contract, which GPs voted overwhelmingly to reject in a referendum.

The contract rejected by GPs – imposed by the government – includes a 1.9% uplift to practice funding, far short of the 8.7% increase the BMA said was needed to return GP practices to the financial position they were in before the five-year contract deal that began in 2019.

Junior doctors also remain in dispute with the government over pay and conditions. NHS England has said that up to January this year, industrial action by doctors cost £1.5bn. The BMA report suggests that failing to invest in staff retention could cost more.

Dr Patel added: ‘Doctors believe in the NHS and most would rather stay to ensure that it works for everyone. But everyone’s goodwill runs dry eventually and they cannot be expected to continue to give every day to a service that so often leaves them undervalued, under-supported and unable to care for themselves or their patients.’