Many doctors see ‘no future in the UK’ the BMA has warned, as a GMC report reveals one in five intend to quit UK practice.

A failure to value staff, high-pressure workplaces and insufficient access to employment are forcing ‘able and enthusiastic doctors’ to consider leaving UK medical practice the association has claimed, in response to the GMC’s latest workplace experiences report.

Published today, the report, which draws on the workplace experiences of doctors from across the UK, finds 74 per cent of those responding in 2024 told the GMC that they were likely to make a change to their careers in the next 12 months.

This included 24 per cent who said they were likely to reduce clinical practice hours and 19 per cent who indicated plans to leave the UK. Of this figure, 12 per cent told the regulator this was to practise medicine abroad.

The report also reveals the proportion of doctors taking ‘hard steps’ to quit medicine in the UK had remained at 15 per cent, unchanged from the GMC’s two previous workplace experience reports and more than double the 7 per cent of doctors reporting this in 2021.

Hard steps

Doctors most likely to have taken such measures to quit medicine include those at high risk of burn out (30 per cent), those dissatisfied with day-to-day work (28 per cent) and those who felt unable to progress their careers in ways they wanted to (27 per cent).

The taking of hard steps to quit UK medicine was also reported by doctors who said they found themselves struggling to providing sufficient care or had experienced compromised patient safety while working in the NHS.

The report’s findings show that, in 2024, 40 per cent of respondents said that they had had difficulty providing sufficient care at least once a week or witnessed compromised patient safety compared with 34 per cent and 32 per cent respectively in 2019.

Responding to the report, BMA council chair Tom Dolphin warned the findings echoed concerns which have already been highlighted by the association particularly in respect of understaffing in the NHS and the failure to ensure adequate access to training places.

He added that, until such issues were addressed, the health service would continue to haemorrhage critically needed staff.

He said: ‘This report shows the very real impact of what happens when a service does not value and support its staff: they will continue to choose to leave.

‘We face a bizarre contradiction: we still have near record-high waiting lists and patients are desperate to be seen by doctors but at the same time able and enthusiastic doctors are forced to consider moving abroad because they see no future in the UK.

‘Just last week, we revealed that thousands of doctors are facing employment limbo due to a shortage of training places. This is absurd given workforce shortages across the NHS and the growing needs of patients. We need to be training more specialists in the UK to provide the care NHS patients need and deserve, not fewer.

‘The GMC’s findings echo these concerns about career progression and show the effect this has on doctors’ wellbeing and the NHS’s ability to keep doctors working here.

‘The solutions to this problem are clear: ensure there are enough roles to keep doctors who have put such time and effort into their training here, while ensuring these jobs are supportive and paid well enough to stop the haemorrhaging of UK doctors overseas when patients and the NHS need them most.’

While the report found that ‘major challenges’ to medicine remained across the UK, the situation facing doctors in Northern Ireland was particularly acute, with staff there reporting more negative experiences in multiple areas above that of the UK average.

The report found that 73 per cent of doctors in Northern Ireland reported working beyond rostered hours at least once a week in 2024, compared with an average of 62 per cent of doctors in the rest of the UK, with 26 per cent of staff at high risk of burnout compared with the UK average of 18 per cent.

Meanwhile, the recent imposition of a new general medical services contract, which will leave primary care services woefully underfunded, saw GPs in Northern Ireland vote overwhelmingly in support of collective action and the withdrawal of some services.

BMA Northern Ireland council chair Alan Stout said: ‘These figures come as no surprise to frontline medics here, and they should be cause for alarm to our policy makers.

‘This report is yet another reminder that doctors working in Northern Ireland are subjected to workloads and workplace conditions that would be deemed unacceptable elsewhere in the UK.’

To read the report in full visit the GMC’s website