Whenever immigration into the UK is discussed on radio or television or within the media generally, they trot out the old chestnut that the National Health Service (NHS) relies on doctors, nurses and other health workers from overseas and that without them ‘the NHS would collapse’. The inference being that without immigration we would have no functioning national health service.
Of course it is true that a large proportion of the staff in our hospitals and GP medical practices are currently from overseas. Statistics issued in March 2017 by the General Medical Council (GMC) and based on figures up to and including 2016, show that out of doctors on their List of Registered Medical Practitioners in the UK, only 46.2% are of White British ethnicity. This is a shocking statistic that more that 50% of doctors employed in the UK are of foreign extraction!
Even if we count in all of the other White doctors drawn from Ireland, the EU and further afield, it only brings the percentage of White doctors up to 61.3%.
If all of the immigrant doctors were to disappear overnight it would cause a crisis within the NHS, and so is it right therefore to claim that we rely on immigration in order to have a functioning health service?
The answer of course is a resounding ‘No’!
There is no reason to assume that halting mass immigration would cause all immigrant doctors to give up their practices and leave our country overnight. In fact this is a deliberately disingenuous suggestion intended to panic the unthinking masses.
Furthermore, prior to the 1980s the NHS was overwhelmingly White with the vast majority of doctors, nurses and other health workers drawn from our indigenous British population, and if such a state of affairs existed once, there is no reason why it could not be recreated once more.
Let us focus for the sake of simplicity on doctors. The first question we need to ask ourselves is how many doctors we need?
According to the GMC there are 236,976 doctors on their list of registered medical practitioners who are licensed to practise medicine in the UK and while we could probably do with more, let us accept for the purpose of this exercise that the maintenance of this number would prevent the NHS from performing less well than it does now.
If we assume that doctors practice medicine from say, age 25 up to age 65, that is for 40 years on average, we should need an intake of new doctors each year of just 5,924 medical students in order to maintain numbers.
Surprisingly, statistics from the GMC show that on average over the last 10 years, there have been 12,333 news doctors registered with them each year, more than double the amount required to maintain numbers. These statistics also show that on average over that same period, the number of doctors on their register has as one might expect, increased each year by 4,030.
What these figures indicate is that of the 12,333 new doctors registered each year; 5,924 have been needed in order to maintain doctor numbers; a further 4,030 have caused numbers to rise; and the difference, amounting to 2,379 each year have left service, going abroad or retiring earlier than age 65.
Therefore, if we want to maintain doctor numbers, continue the increase in doctors that is needed presumably to improve the health service and allow aging doctors to retire early should they wish, we do need to find at least 12,333 new medical students each year. The question we must answer is whether it is possible to find that number of good quality medical students each year from within the indigenous population of the UK?
If we refer to an article that featured in the Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2004, we are told, “Despite Britain’s shortage of doctors, thousands of students with excellent A-levels, or even relevant science degrees, are unable to gain admission to medical degree courses in Britain because of a lack of places.”
“Last year, more than half of the 14,833 applicants to medical schools – many with three A grades at A-level – in Britain failed to secure a place.”
It is evident therefore, that each year more than enough home grown students apply to go to medical school, so why is there a need to recruit doctors from overseas at all?
The answer to this is provided in a recent article in the Daily Mail which states, “The Government says it takes £230,000 to fully train each doctor in the UK because of the higher costs of delivering medical education, and critics claim the number of places available at universities is capped to save taxpayers’ money.”
“UK universities were allowed to recruit just 6,071 medicine students last year, even though the General Medical Council (GMC) registers 13,000 doctors each year.”
Unlike other students who are required to pay their own university tuition fees, medical students have their fees paid by government grant, and sadly a deliberate decision by successive governments has meant that medical school places have been restricted in order to save money. In order to fill the gap between the number of medical school graduates in the UK and the number of vacancies occurring, the governments have preferred to recruit foreign doctors, primarily from the Third World as a cheap alternative.
Most people prefer to be treated by someone with whom they identify, someone like them, of similar heritage, race and ethnicity, and we British are no different.
So, could we afford to train the additional 6,300 doctors needed in order to cope with patient demand? I believe we could.
The additional 6,300 doctors, at £230,000 a time, would cost us an additional £1,449,000,000 per year, a cost that could be borne by our workforce of 30,100,000 workers for just £48.13 per annum each in additional taxes – less that £1.00 per week. A cost that I believe most people would be prepared to pay to ensure that when we need the services of a doctor, we can rely on being treated by a British doctor or a White doctor of kindred stock.
While I have focused on doctors in this article, a similar situation exists regarding nurses and other health workers. The ‘shortages’ that exist, are merely false shortages created by expenditure cuts and by political contrivance. There is no real reason why we could not have a White national health service, all that is required is the political will needed to create it.
By Max Musson © 2017
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Stefan
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Bonnie Greer was on TV talking about doing a calculation on the NHS without foreign workers but of course after Brexit, they will largely still be here, unless they’re in a huff & take their ball home.
If Ms Greer’s suggestion was carried out, then we also need to factor out all the immigrants using the NHS as well & see where we are.
Probably no worse off.
Frederick Dixon
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A very interesting study Max. But to pay for your proposals there would be no need to levy an extra tax, even in the modest sum of £48. 13 per annum. Once we are out of the EU we will have ten billion a year to play with, and if we did away with overseas aid that figure would go up to 22 billion. We could certainly plough more money into the NHS, including your proposed expanded training budget, we could greatly beef up border control and we could strengthen our armed forces( you can tell what my priorities are) and still have money left over to reduce the deficit.
tony l
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The other obvious point which you’ve not covered is that immigrants use NHS resources to a greater extent than the English.
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If all immigrant doctors left tomorrow, the NHS would be in crisis. But if all the immigrants went too, there would be no problem because the doctor – patient ratio would not change that much. And frankly, even if it did I could wait the 5 year training time!
Heather
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Previous comments are thinking on the same lines as myself regarding the numbers of immigrants using the Health Service, which of course requires us to need more medical staff. Reduce those numbers, you reduce the strain on the NHS
There is also the issue of competence, and standards of Doctors or other medical professionals coming in from Third world. I have personal experience, and also with a family member in the Nursing profession I hear how the standards, and some attitudes of foreign staff are definitely not the same. This causes issues ranging from patient care to efficient running of a department, which in turn costs money.
I also wonder about the ethics. Should we be taking Doctors from Africa, India, Pakistan etc. Are these not the developing Countries that need their better educated people to stay and build their own societies?
With regards to the cost of training, I’m quite sure people would be prepared to pay a little extra tax for it. I think many people would also like to see a huge reduction in Foreign Aid and that money transferred to Health.
Apart from a skeleton fund to help with certain things abroad, I’d like to see people be given a choice on contributions to that particular tax eater.
Stefan
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Heather touches on something I have mentioned before, what I called reverse colonialism, where if we are taking the best from other countries, how can they ever develop successfully?
Also we train people up here but they go abroad, the system needs to retain them for a time at least.
But also we clearly aren’t getting the best from abroad, we have agencies that only recruit abroad.
I tried several times to get work in this area but got nowhere with it, also care homes, nothing.
They want foreign workers, it’s an immigration portal like London Transport was & various bus companies, also minicabs.
You get this rhetoric about they are doing jobs the British don’t want to do.
Heather
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“Doing the jobs the British won’t do” how about that for a piece of hate speech or stereotyping of a people.
It is also complete rubbish, as we always did the jobs before, so what changed?
This Country seems to be treated as a giant business park, with human trafficking to maximise profits. There’s little moral or spiritual fibre. There is certainly no honour or loyalty to us as a people from those running the show.
I have heard people talk about how their jobs in the care sector, or farm work or factory work, the list is endless, were made untenable, as replacements arrived from abroad. Your description of an immigration portal is perfect.
There is also the qualification barrier. I see jobs advertised that are asking for various qualifications, very often they seem unnecessary and a bit of common sense is more appropriate, or previous experience would do just fine. Many of these job types, are filled by people from abroad. Do they have these qualifications, or equivalent of in standards etc?
Some I’ve come across can barely speak English, yet they are put into a position that requires good communication skills.
This is particularly important in NHS.
Likewise those wanting to train in medicine struggling to get places because they are limited. I’ve even heard of people newly qualified being given the run around to get a post, even in such as midwifery where we have chronic shortages.