The head of Britain's medical colleges has warned that foreign doctors and nurses are increasingly avoiding the NHS due to anti-migrant rhetoric and rising racism, creating a 'hostile environment' that puts the health service at risk.
Professor Jeanette Dickson, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, said overseas health professionals see the UK as 'unwelcoming, racist' partly because of the government's tough immigration approach. Record numbers of foreign-born doctors are quitting the NHS, and the post-Brexit surge in new arrivals has stalled, while nurse and midwife numbers have fallen sharply.
Dickson, an NHS consultant clinical oncologist, told the Guardian: 'My feeling is we are creating a culture where the rhetoric is “foreigner bad”. If you have never visited Britain and are looking at our media, social media, press, what our politicians say, it’s not unreasonable to see that as a hostile environment.' She added that without overseas staff, the NHS 'could quite easily fall over'.
Figures show 42% of UK doctors qualified abroad. Dickson cited racist abuse from colleagues and patients, as well as political and media hostility, as deterrents. Selina Douglas, chief executive of the Whittington health trust, reported staff being spat on and racially abused. Health Secretary Wes Streeting acknowledged '1970s, 1980s-style racism' against NHS staff.
Dickson also criticised the Labour government for prioritising UK medical graduates over overseas ones in specialist training places, calling it shortsighted given global competition for healthcare workers.
