NHS faces exodus of doctors and surgeons to foreign healthcare systems

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The NHS is losing senior doctors to countries including Ireland, Australia and the United Arab Emirates because they can double their salary and enjoy better working conditions.

Medical leaders are concerned about a growing exodus of hugely experienced doctors and surgeons to foreign healthcare systems, the Guardian has been told. Rising numbers of middle-aged consultants are opting for a new life abroad, which is exacerbating the NHS workforce crisis.

The revelation comes after NHS consultants in England staged a second day of strike action on Friday in a row over pay with the government. They will strike again for 48 hours towards the end of next month.

Global medical recruiters have for years been able to tempt junior doctors away from the NHS, because they are younger and have fewer reasons to remain in the UK.

But medical leaders are increasingly worried about an emerging trend of senior doctors, in some cases people with several decades of experience, quitting the NHS and the UK altogether.

Simon Walsh, the deputy chair of the British Medical Association consultants’ committee, said rising numbers were being tempted to take jobs abroad because of how much more money they could earn and often superior working conditions.

Walsh, an emergency medicine consultant, said he received weekly emails inviting him to apply for lucrative posts in the Middle East and elsewhere.

He said: “My own personal experience is that during the last two years, three of my consultant colleagues have decided to move and work in Australia or New Zealand. In a short period, that is quite a significant number. And those are people that have families.

“It’s quite a big decision, when it will be difficult to see your parents or wider family, and to move your children into a different school system. So it’s not a decision that people take lightly. It’s not surprising, when the salary starting point will probably be double what we would be on here.”

In some more remote areas, Walsh said, NHS consultants were being offered even more. “I’ve heard of salaries that were at least three times the UK salary, if not approaching four times,” he said.

Steve Barclay, the health secretary, has awarded consultants in England a 6% pay rise. The Department of Health and Social Care says extra payments such as clinical excellence awards and cash for being on call would take the average NHS pay for consultants in 2023-24 to about ?134,000.

The BMA has called the pay award “derisory” and said doctors have had their real-term take-home pay fall by more than a third over the last 14 years. According to the BMA, consultants on a 2003 contract earn a starting salary of ?88,364 in basic pay, rising to ?119,133 after about 19 years.

Global medical recruiters are directly targeting picket lines. At the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham this week, a recruitment agency handed out bottled water to striking consultants and offered them new roles in Ireland paying up to ?233,000.

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Eye surgeon Sakkaf Ahmed Aftab, the chairman of the BMA Yorkshire consultants’ committee, said: “I’ve been 20 years as a consultant and, where I work, I’ve lost two of my colleagues who have left the country and gone to Abu Dhabi – out of eight consultants – and, I’ve lost another one who’s gone to New Zealand.

“We need the most senior doctors to be there to train the juniors. If the senior doctors are leaving for Australia or the Middle East, or taking retirement early, or leaving the NHS completely, who will be there to train the next generation of doctors?”

Ben Hockenhull, a consultant at St Mary’s hospital in London, said: “I’m getting job offers from around the world … more than double my current remuneration package with added benefits and things like my professional expenses are paid for. Currently I have to pay for those myself.

“Watching my colleagues disappear from the UK, taking up those benefits packages abroad, moving to Australia and moving to New Zealand, moving to the Middle East, means that those of us that are left behind are the ones who are having to try and keep the service afloat. That’s making us more stressed and more burnt out.”

Respiratory consultant Neela Surange said: “I know many, many people who are now finishing the training but they are looking elsewhere because jobs in many other countries, including the Republic of Ireland, are far more lucrative than UK consultant posts.

“Public healthcare services in Ireland pays more than the UK NHS, and other countries too: Gulf countries, Canada, Australia. I come from India and I know that the private sector in India pays a lot more and the work conditions there are far better than the NHS.”