Poll shows 60% of European doctors are considering leaving UK

More than half of the doctors from Europe working in the UK are considering leaving the country because of Brexit, a survey by the General Medical Council indicates.

Charlie Massey, the chief executive of the GMC, told the health select committee that while a survey was “not necessarily predictive of future behaviour” the results indicated a potential serious depletion in the workforce.

“It does send a worrying signal in terms of the stock of doctors currently working in the UK,” he said while giving evidence to MPs on Tuesday.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said it was “extremely concerning that over half of doctors from the EEA [European Economic Area] feel so undervalued as to consider leaving the UK following the Brexit vote”.

The GMC said 2,106 doctors from the EEA, about 10% of the total who are working in the UK, had responded to the survey.

Of those who responded, 60% (1,280) said they were considering leaving the UK at some point in the future, and, of those doctors, 91% said the UK’s decision to leave the EU was a factor in their considerations.

Separately, a senior Department of Health official told the committee that British people claiming pensions who had emigrated to Europe were saving the UK about £350m a year in healthcare costs. Medical treatment in the most popular countries for British retirees, France and Spain, was cheaper than it was in the UK, said Paul MacNaught, the director of EU, international and prevention programmes at the DoH.

The 190,000 British retirees living elsewhere in Europe, cost the UK an average of £2,300 a year in payments to local health providers. In Britain, the cost of supporting their European equivalents was an annual average of £4,500.

“This is one of the advantages of the current arrangements,” MacNaught said.

The UK paid about £650m to EU countries to compensate for their health services to Britons. The vast bulk of that, £500m, went on the 190,000 retired Britons in Europe. Of those, 70,000 were living in Spain, 44,000 in Ireland, 43,000 in France, and 12,000 in Cyprus.

More than 1,000 respondents in the GMC survey commented on their feelings about Brexit and its impact on their practices.

Massey said two primary reasons were cited for considering abandoning careers in Britain: “Firstly, a question of whether or not doctors felt valued working in the NHS, and secondly, the uncertainty over the continuing future residency status.”

Ashworth said: “The skills and dedication of staff from around the world are integral to our NHS and the government must immediately reassure EU nationals of their right to live and work in the UK. If they don’t, we risk facing a serious staff shortage which will only further worsen pressures on our NHS.”

In a statement, Massey said: “EEA doctors make a huge and vital contribution to health services across the UK. We want to continue attracting overseas doctors in future, and ensure we do not create any unnecessary barriers that would stop them coming here. It’s deeply worrying that some are considering leaving the UK in the next few years. If they leave, this would have a serious impact on patient care and would place the rest of the UK medical profession under even greater pressure.”

Last week the health select committee heard that about 10% of doctors in the NHS were EU nationals, while 5% of nurses had trained in European countries before moving to Britain.

The BMA’s council chair, Mark Porter, warned last week that an exodus of doctors after Brexit could be a “disaster and threaten the delivery of high-quality patient care”.

The EEA consists of all 28 members of the EU along with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

Poll shows 60% of European doctors are considering leaving UK