NHS hiring more doctors from outside UK and EEA than inside for first time

The most common places where international medical graduates joining the NHS come from are India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt and Sudan. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

The NHS is hiring more doctors from outside the UK and the European Economic Area than from within for the first time, setting off a moral argument over the health service’s growing mentality of “poaching” from the developing world.

Unpublished figures from the General Medical Council (GMC) show that 7,377 (37%) of the 19,977 doctors who started work in the NHS in 2021 had a British qualification.