As junior doctors are set to strike for 13th time, growth in new doctors is fastest ever

"There are now more ethnic minority doctors than white" - 2/3rds of 2023 increase from overseas

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2025

Our simple, 'at-a-glance' charts raise some serious questions

Yesterday the British Medical Association – the trade union – announced the thirteenth walkout of junior doctors in the last two-and-a-half years. Starting at 07:00am on 14 November, the strike will last for five days. The doctors are demanding a 29% pay increase on top of the 29% increase they have received in the last three years.

In England alone, the waiting list for planned hospital care stood at 7.6 million in November of last year. This latest five-day strike can only add to the frustrations of patients.

Facts4EU.Org looks beyond the strike to reveal some extraordinary facts about the composition of front-line physicians and how this has changed in recent years.

Number of non-GP doctors has been growing fast

It is difficult to think of any other area of professional activity where numbers of staff have been increasing so rapidly. In June 2025 (latest data), NHS secondary care had over 45,000 more FTE (‘Full-Time Equivalent’) doctors than in June 2015. This is a 44.1% increase. The rate of change has increased in recent years, reaching an annual growth rate of over 5% in 2024. ‘Secondary Care’ excludes GP services and dentists.

FTE Secondary Care doctors in the NHS in England

June 2015 : 102,564
June 2025 : 147,836
Increase : 45,272 (+44.1%)

Where have all these doctors appeared from?

One of the major complaints (amongst many) from the BMA concerns the failure to train a sufficient number of home-grown doctors. To fill the resultant shortfall, the health service has relied heavily on international recruitment.

“In 2023, over two thirds of joiners (68%) were non-UK graduates, who attained their primary medical qualification (PMQ) abroad. This group grew from under half (47%) of joiners in 2017.”
- General Medical Council, Workforce report 2024

New doctors joining – proportion sourced from overseas

There are now more ethnic minority doctors than white

“And there are now more doctors from an ethnic minority background on the register than white doctors.”
“The ethnic diversity of the workforce has increased since 2012 but has grown especially quickly from 2016 onwards. The number of ethnic minority doctors grew at almost eight times the rate of white doctors between 2016 and 2023 - ethnic minority doctors increased by 78% compared to a 10% increase for white doctors.”
- General Medical Council, Workforce report 2024

Total doctors from an ethnic minority background

Growth rates 2016-2023, as quoted by the GMC

‘Cheap’ mass immigration substitutes for investment in training home-grown doctors

One area of life in the UK which has increasingly been talked about in recent years is that of stagnant productivity. Closely allied to this is the extent to which investment has not been made in either technology or in training, in order to increase productivity of the labour force overall.

A repeated complaint in the medical profession has been the lack of funding for the training of doctors from the local population to gain their primary medical qualification (PMQ). In addition to the insufficient training of young doctors to reach this licensed level, both the BMA and the GMC have warned about the lack of sufficient places for young doctors to train in their chosen specialisms following their PMQ. Instead, an increasing reliance has been placed on the ready availability of qualified staff from overseas.

Insufficient number of home-grown doctors explains some immigration, but property managers?

In this we report we focus principally on doctors, but we would like to hear from anyone in top management who can explain why we need to import all manner of other persons from overseas to man our health service. In another of our unique ‘at-a-glance’ Brexit Facts4EU.Org charts we give readers information they will not find in any newspaper today.

Percentage of staff in NHS England from overseas

A sample of selected areas of employment within the health service, 2024

No, there has been no exodus of EU staff due to Brexit

Given the apparent desire for the current government to blame everything on Brexit, below is the proportion of EEA staff (the EU27 plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) in England since before the 2016 EU Referendum.

Proportion of NHS England staff from the EEA (EU27 plus 3 others)

As the King’s Fund says in response: ”The proportion of staff from EEA nations has remained static.”

“Just give it to me straight, Doctor”

One very obvious impact of importing doctors, many from the Indian sub-continent, has been in the number of patients reporting serious difficulties in understanding what a doctor is saying to them. Not nearly enough prominence has been given to this essential element in the doctor-patient relationship. This problem also extends to the medical profession more generally, and to the compounded difficulties of having, say, a doctor from Nigeria communicating about a patient’s treatment with a nurse from Indonesia.

A secondary element, which it seems organisations like the GMC and BMA are less willing to talk about, is the extent to which qualification in many countries is to a standard far below that which is required of home-trained doctors in the UK. If indigenous medical students were required to train for even one less year prior to qualification, then obviously the number of doctors qualifying could instantly be increased significantly.

Observations

In days of yore, it probably seemed unnecessary to legislate for doctors to have a no-strike clause in their contracts. It was simply inconceivable that they would withdraw their live-saving skills from patients, based on their Hippocratic oath to ‘Do no harm or injustice to them’. We now know that patients have suffered grievously from the previous 12 strikes since 2023. Given the remarkably different attitudes of (particularly) younger doctors, we believe that the Conservatives’ policy of introducing legislation to outlaw industrial action would be very popular with the public.

One of the difficulties the public have with the continual enormous pay rises being demanded by junior doctors is that at the same time as this, their union, the BMA, is complaining about an insufficient number of training places. The question that must be asked is that if the profession has far more demand to join it than places available on courses, then presumably pay is no barrier to entry. It is difficult to see why the law of supply and demand should not apply to the health service as much as to any other job.

Given that doctors were the first major beneficiaries of the new Government’s largesse when it took power last year, and given that their pay has increased more rapidly than any in other area in the public sector, we believe they may find it difficult to attract much public support for their intended actions next month.

The final question that must be asked is in regard to overall levels of public expenditure. The additional sums that have been thrown at the NHS for many years now almost defy belief. The additional numbers of doctors each year have far outstripped population growth. Despite this, the public’s impression seems very clearly to be that service standards have been falling. Either we blame the transformation of our workforce of doctors into one that is primarily sourced from sub-standard practitioners who qualified overseas, or we blame a simply incompetent management structure and incessant meddling by successive governments in making major re-organisations.

We leave readers to offer their own views in the comments section below.

Please, please help us to carry on our vital work in defence of independence, sovereignty, democracy and freedom by donating today. Thank you.

[ Sources: NHS Digital | The GNC | The BMA | NHS England | The King's Fund ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Fri 24 Oct 2025

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Reader Comments 8

1. Sparky , Friday, October 24, 2025, 07:28:

It takes 10 to 15 years to train a doctor. The lack of UK doctors goes back well before Brexit.
.
The first and last charts are not comparable. The first show the number of doctors in the NHS. The last shows NHS staff which will include nurses, porters etc. There was a decline in the number of EU Doctors after Brexit.

2. Old Albion , Friday, October 24, 2025, 12:27:

Approx 2 million unemployed in the UK. So are the government saying there is no one within that group fit enough or intelligent enough to become a hospital porter/maintenence operative/cleaner.
There must also be many who could train as a nurse and quite possibly some who could train as doctors.
So they'll continue to import people to fill those roles.
When a doctor comes in from (let's say) Nigeria. Does that mean there are no sick people in Nigeria?

3. NH , Friday, October 24, 2025, 13:31:

According to the Unions if we do not pay up all the Doctors are leaving to go Australia or New Zealand were they have "wonderful health systems with much higher pay, benefits and better working conditions". However over the last 4 - 5 years UK NHS costs on both a per capita or % of GDP basis have been similar or higher than Australia and New Zealand. These figures do not include last years pay rise. Unfortunately it's not just a pay rise it comes with a huge increase in pension liabilities.
.
The cost per capita are £3,300 for England and Scotland, £3,500 for N. Ireland and £3,600 for Wales. So for a family of 4 somebody needs to pay approx. £14,000 per year, plus the 29% pay rise and pension liabilities. If you believe the OBR they say the present health and welfare systems are "utterly unaffordable". They claim it would push up the UK national debt to 270% of GDP by 2070 and the "true cost" of Nett Zero is £30 Billion per year.
.
A recent freedom of Information request on the Inland revenue for tax year 2023-24 stated that the top 1% pay 33% of all Income Tax and Capital Gains tax. Other Government reports say the top 10% pay 60% of all income tax. These figures do not include the Labour Governments tax rises and any "leavers" will not show up in the figures until they have been out of the country for a full tax year. These are the people that the Labour Government want to punish !
.
I don't think the plan to have a free health and welfare system for anybody in the world who wants it is working and I doubt Labour's plan to punish the wealthy is going to result in their desired outcome !

4. KB , Friday, October 24, 2025, 15:36:

I thought one of the reasons they were striking is because there are 30,000 newly qualified doctors chasing 10,000 posts.
If that is the case why are we importing doctors ?

5. Gazzablack , Friday, October 24, 2025, 20:52:

1, sparkless
.
There's an estimated shortage of 1.2 million doctors, nurses and midwives in the EU as of 2022, so we're not alone for a lack of numbers.

6. Mr Sceptic , Saturday, October 25, 2025, 08:41:

Is Facts4EU contextualising the data to claim that ‘white doctors’ are better than ‘coloured doctors’?

7. Gazzablack , Saturday, October 25, 2025, 13:41:

6 septic
.
Is there a point to your question?
Or are you just muddying the waters?
.
You certainly seem to be afflicted with the hyperbole virus.

8. Gazzablack , Saturday, October 25, 2025, 19:39:

A shout out to Claude Greengrass on X for the observation below.
An accurate summation of the EU.
.
The EU produces nothing, it sells nothing, it makes not one penny profit.
It is a government without a country.
It taxes us, it spends and enjoys the fruits of our labour.
In the end it's worthless, a PARASITE bleeding it's hosts dry of money, nationhood, pride and independence.

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