The NHS is facing a “workforce crisis” as figures show it is struggling to recruit enough homegrown doctors and nurses. According to NHS digital data, around 6,000 more doctors and 9,000 more nurses and healthcare workers were recruited to work in England in 2021 than in 2015 - a total of more than 68,000 new doctors and nurses.
However, that was offset by the loss of more than 55,000 doctors and nurses who left the NHS last. And as demands on the health service radically increase in the wake of the pandemic, analysis from the BBC Shared Data Unit shows the NHS is increasingly reliant on recruits from outside the UK and Europe.
Some 58% of doctors joining the health service in 2021 came from the UK, the lowest proportion in seven years and down from 69% in 2015; while the proportion of nurses recruited domestically fell from 74% to 61% over the same period. At the same time, the share of doctors arriving from the rest of the world (excluding the UK and Europe) almost doubled, rising from 18% to 34%, and the proportion of international nurses rocketed from 7% to 34%.
