UK visa system likely to deter GPs warns professional body

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCPG) has warned that the UK visa system is likely to deter overseas GPs, who have completed British GP training via working for the NHS, from wanting to work in Britain. The RCPG’s sharp rebuke toward the Home Office comes amid the UK government’s struggle to add 6,000 more GPs by 2024.

However, the Home Office has dismissed the RCPG’s warning as ‘ needless scaremongering’. The spat between the RCPG and the Home Office comes following a letter sent by RCPG chair, Professor Martin Marshall, who wrote to Home Secretary, Priti Patel, urging her to implement measures to help retain international medical graduates (IMGs).

Professor Marshall told GPonline: “It is not ‘scaremongering’ to highlight issues that are potential barriers to building the GP workforce at a time when the government, by its own admission, is not on track to meet its target of 6,000 more GPs by 2024.”

Challenging to secure sponsorship

“In some cases, the short timeframe between completion of GP specialty training and UK visa expiry has made it challenging to secure sponsorship. This causes undue stress for these doctors who sometimes end up having to make difficult decisions about whether to leave general practice or leave the country,” Professor Marshall added.

According to the RCPG chairman, UK visa barriers are also causing problems for practices looking to hire new GPs. Marshall argued that in some cases, it’s proving impossible for GPs to find sponsorship in an area of the UK that they want to work in. 

Marshall went on to claim that it is also impossible to determine how many doctors the current UK visa system has deterred from working as a GP in Britain.

Significant bureaucracy

In the letter sent to Patel, the RCPG warned that IMGs face ‘significant bureaucracy’ if they want to remain in UK general practice following the completion of their training. The letter claims that this puts the contribution of IMGs, and the investment made by the NHS, at risk. 

The RCPG urged the Home Office to instead grant doctors, who complete UK GP training, automatic leave to remain.

A recent report published by GPonline revealed that almost half of overseas doctors who began UK GP training in 2021/22 were IMGs, and warned that they could struggle to work in the NHS following the completion of their training because the vast majority of GP practices are not set up as ‘UK visa sponsors’.

Meanwhile GP representatives at the UK LMCs conference echoed the concerns of the RCPG, warning that the NHS risked losing ‘swathes of exceptional colleagues’ in a season when the workforce across general practice is diminishing and in a state of desperation because overseas doctors who come through training have no guarantee that they can remain in Britain.

Professor Marshall said: “We are asking for reasonable steps to be taken to resolve this issue: to give trainee GPs the opportunity to apply for indefinite leave to remain on completion of training – which is the same as is offered to trainees in other medical specialties by virtue of their longer training programmes.”

“In the interim, we ask for all GP trainees on completion of training to be given a three-month extension to their visa as standard to allow them time to secure employment in general practice, delivering patient care in the NHS. Our invitation to the Home Secretary to meet to discuss this issue remains open,” Professor Marshall added.

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