‘Charge doctors £130,000 if they quit the NHS’

June 2, 2016

Independent think tank Civitas said proposals would reduce staffing crisis
Claims move would lift restrictions and free up medical training places
It would also reduce burden on overseas doctors costing £12m a year
Report: Thousands of newly-trained doctors leave for overseas agencies

Kate Pickles For Mailonline

Published:
21:20 EST, 1 June 2016

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Updated:
12:40 EST, 2 June 2016

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Doctors should face a potential bill of £131,000 if they quit the NHS soon after completing their training, a report has suggested.

Student medics should be made to take out loans to cover their training that would be paid back by the health service as long as they remained working within it, according to a think tank.

The proposals by Civitas suggest the move would allow restrictions limiting medical school places to around 6,000 a year to be lifted

It would also help end the dependency on overseas doctors to plug ‘severe’ staff shortages, Civitas said.

Thousands of doctors are quitting the NHS after expensive training but charging them could stop this from happening, a new report says

Its report found the UK spends up to £12 million a year training international medical students who are free to leave the UK at the end of their course.

Edmund Stubbs, Civitas healthcare researcher, said: ‘The only way to solve the current medical staffing crisis is to find a way to train more medics in this country.

‘What we need is a far larger pool of medics from which we can produce a stable, permanent workforce.

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‘It is also imperative we ensure that doctors continue to work for the NHS after the UK taxpayer has made such a major investment in their training.’

The report claims thousands of newly-trained doctors swiftly leave the NHS to work for agencies, private providers or for posts in other countries.

Overall, 8,343 doctors applied for approval to practise in the UK in 2014 while the number of commissioned medical school places in the same year was only 6,071.

Staff shortages are set to increase amid growing pressures on services and the expected retirement of around 13,500 consultants and GPs in the next five years.

The report follows months of unrest and strike action over the new contract for junior doctors. It suggests this would be an effective way of stopping staff shortages

Around 9,400 new posts must be created between 2015 and 2019 to meet projected demand, the report warns.

Under the proposals, the NHS would repay the 30-year loans at a rate of around £4,380 a year but doctors would have to repay the outstanding debt if they left the service before it was cleared.

Mr Stubbs added: ‘The NHS, faced with a staffing crisis and serious underfunding, cannot reasonably be expected to fund the training of medics who have no desire to work for the organisation.

‘Those medics who want to work in the private sector or abroad after qualifying might, in the light of the proposed scheme, be encouraged to consider undertaking their medical education overseas or even in the rapidly expanding private medical university sector.

‘It is possible that some private or overseas healthcare employers might be prepared to repay student loans on behalf of their employees as an incentive to work for their enterprises.

‘The fact that we fully fund the placements of international students is alarming.

‘The money saved from the NHS no longer paying clinical training placement fees on behalf of such students could fund the training of many more UK medics.’