Under and out: dependant rule drives away doctors

Doctors are being driven out of the UK by a change in visa rules which keeps families apart. Jennifer Trueland speaks to a consultant from a shortage specialty who has recently moved to Australia because of Home Office inflexibility

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The Doctor magazine

Patient early discharge threat

22 January 2020

BMA council chair Chaand Nagpaul has warned the NHS is ‘woefully underfunded’ after a hospital trust told doctors they might have to discharge patients early, despite the risk they could come to harm.
Pension payment suspension unlawful

17 January 2020

The BMA has secured victory in the high court over changes made by health secretary Matt Hancock to the NHS pensions scheme in England and Wales
The Doctor – issue 17, January 2020

16 January 2020

Deploying 'big data' safely, mental health services run ragged, the power of sport to boost wellbeing for all, the GP providing care for the homeless, doctors and their dependants forced out of the UK owing visa rule inflexibility and the problem with 'resilience' – all issues covered in the January issue of The Doctor

Do A&E wait times matter?

Last week, several newspapers and broadcasters reported that the secretary of state for health and social care, Matt Hancock, had hinted at scrapping the four-hour target for emergency care.
A doctor’s blessing

The Secret Doctor’s current incarnation is a lifelong atheist, from a family where the parents read their children the shorter essays of Bertrand Russell while others were telling Bible stories.
Christmas with the family – the NHS one

I qualified as a doctor this year and will be working my very first Christmas in the NHS at the Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford.

'People like us don't become doctors'

Overcoming the toughest social barriers to enter medicine, doctors and medical students tell us how they made it against the odds.
Are you paying to go to work?

We asked GPs and hospital doctors about pension tax charges and how they’re affecting work commitments. Here are the results.
Neil Armstrong's doctor

When Neil Armstrong's crew returned to earth, it was flight surgeon Bill Carpentier who looked after them. Fifty years on, he tells us about his weeks quarantined with the moonwalkers.
The hard road back

Alastair Watt was a respected and hard-working consultant. His death raises serious questions about how the NHS looks after its doctors when they return to work after illness.
A place of refuge?

Squalid and overcrowded – we visit one of the largest refugee camps in Greece.
Streets of Shame

Homelessness and the NHS - a tome of tragedies
Born of injustice

Separated at Birth junior doctor and mother of two is back in family court, under very different circumstances.
Separated at birth

The impact of poor access to mental healthcare during pregnancy.
An end to market madness?

Quietly, the NHS is being reorganised by health leaders but the pace of change is being forced by frontline services buckling under pressure of increased demand and diminishing resources.
When a doctor calls for help

Dr Meng Aw-Yong explores the impact of a GMC investigation and where doctors can turn for support.
Care across boundaries

How volunteering in the UK and abroad benefits doctors and the countries that host them.
Enjoy your elective

Follow these medical students and their elective journeys in Malta, Australia, New Zealand, the Himalayan region of India, and at home in the UK.
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