Indian doctors aspiring to make a future in the UK may now think twice before taking a plunge as a record number of junior medics in Britain are seeking jobs abroad.
LONDON: Indian doctors aspiring to make a future in the UK may now think twice before taking a plunge as a record number of junior medics in Britain are seeking jobs abroad after the National Health Service's botched recruitment system left 16,000 trainees chasing 2,000 jobs.
The number of young medics, who are unable to find NHS jobs and looking for work in Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East, has risen twenty-fold.
The largest GPs (general practitioners) recruiting agency has seen more than 1,000 doctors making enquiries about work abroad, compared with just 50 in the same period last year, The Sunday Telegraph reports.
In 10 days' time, 13,000 doctors will take up places at hospitals across England, under a new scheme which standardises and shortens training. But 16,000 are still waiting to hear if they have received one of just 2,300 posts left to be filled in a second round of applications which runs until October.
A British Medical Association survey of more than 2,000 doctors showed that almost half have considered leaving the country if they do not get jobs, while nine in ten thought patient care will worsen because of changes to training.
The new system reduces the number of training hours from 21,000 to 6,000 and requires medics to specialist earlier in their careers.
Doctors are warning of chaos from the start of next month, with hospitals expecting to cancel operations in order to cope with difficulties as thousands of doctors switch jobs.
Many have yet to find accommodation, while the new system has split families with doctors forced to accept posts in different parts of the country, the report said.
The introduction of the system, called Modernising Medical Careers, created a bottleneck this year as about 29,000 junior doctors who left medical school two, three and four years ago competed to get on the same rung of the training ladder, which has 15,600 places. Such applicants have already cost 250,000 pounds in training.
An online recruitment scheme was abandoned in May after a series of security glitches and widespread complaints from applicants who said it failed to take proper account of qualifications.
Research shows that one third of doctors who did not get a job in the first round of interviews had a first class degree or distinction.
Last week, the architect of the system, Prof Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, expressed "deep regret" for the "great distress and anxiety" which the system had brought. But overseas recruitment agencies said the chaos in the UK meant their business was booming.
Carole Hepburn, operations director of HCL, the largest medical staffing recruiter in the UK, told the paper the company had received enquiries from over 1,000 doctors looking for work abroad in the last eight weeks.
"These people are very nervous for their future and because of that they will express an interest in working in any country," she said.
A BMA spokesman said "There's no question that doctors are leaving the NHS in large numbers. It's easy to see why when you look at the way they've been treated in this country."
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