The NHS could face ‘huge holes’ in its workforce the GMC has warned, as figures reveal a dramatic increase in IMG (international medical graduate) doctors giving up their medical licences.
The medical regulator has issued the stark warning after its State of Medical Education and Practice in the UK: Workforce Report 2025 revealed 4,880 IMG doctors relinquished their medical licences in 2024.
The GMC says the figure, which represents a 26 per cent increase on the total number of IMG doctors who gave up their licences in 2023, will leave the health service struggling to fill gaps in services should the number continue to rise.
Published today, the report also found that while the number of IMGs entering the NHS has risen, the rate appears to have slowed with 20,060 joining in 2024, a marginal increase on the 19,629 who arrived in 2023.
In its report, the GMC said there are 138,405 licensed IMG doctors working in the UK, with this figure making up 42 per cent of the total medical workforce.
Success rate
While there are more IMGs applying for specialty training places than ever before, the success rate of overseas qualified applicants remains lower than for UK medical graduates, with 23 per cent of the former securing posts compared with 69 per cent of the latter.
The GMC further warns that, with certain medical specialties, such as general practice, particularly reliant on IMG doctors, further decreases in the number of overseas staff could undermine long-term initiatives such as the Government’s 10-year plan for the NHS in England.
The report also finds that, among those IMG doctors securing licences to practise in the UK, fewer appeared to be securing employment within their first six-months, with just 13 per cent connected to a designated body in 2024 compared with 20 per cent in 2023 and 26 per cent in 2022/21.
It says: ‘Global talent has been central to UK health services since the inception of the NHS. In recent years, internationally trained doctors have formed an ever-increasing proportion of the profession, with over two thirds of new registrants last year having qualified outside the UK.
‘While the number of internationally qualified doctors is still increasing, it is doing so at a notably lower rate compared to the sharp increases of recent years.
‘Strikingly, looking across the UK, greater numbers of international doctors are also leaving the workforce, with many never having secured employment.’
MOHAN: Findings make for concerning reading
The report adds: ‘If we see even a small percentage increase in them [IMGs] leaving, our health services will end up with huge holes that they’ll struggle to fill.
‘Doctors represent a mobile workforce, whose skills are in high demand around the world. The internationally qualified doctors who have historically come to the UK could quite conceivably choose to deploy their talents elsewhere if they feel they have no future job progression here.
‘It is vital that workforce policies across all four countries do not inadvertently demoralise or drive out the talent on which our health services depend.’
Last month saw the BMA join with seven other health trade unions in signing a public statement calling for an end to ‘escalating use of hostile language’ against people from overseas living in the UK, warning that failure to do so risked undermining healthcare.
Responding to the GMC’s report, BMA international committee chair Kitty Mohan said that findings made for concerning reading.
She said: ‘International medical graduates have always been essential to the NHS and, as such, these figures are hugely concerning.
‘Sadly, we know that a rising tide of anti-migrant rhetoric in the UK is likely forcing many overseas doctors to reconsider their futures in the NHS, and the BMA has and will continue to speak out against this hostile climate and stands in solidarity with all IMG staff.
‘We also know that successive governments have singularly failed to adequate plan for the health service’s workforce. This has resulted in a dramatic shortfall in training places which in turn is leading to both UK and overseas graduates struggling to secure jobs in a woefully understaffed NHS.’
She added: ‘The Government owes to our profession and to patients to ensure that all doctors are supported and given the incentives and opportunities to contribute to our health service.’