Wes Streeting criticizes NHS leaders for favoring foreign doctors over local talent, as he promises to support more UK-trained medics.

Wes Streeting expressed concern that the NHS is depending too much on recruiting migrant doctors, as new data reveals a significant increase in the number of foreign medics.

The Health Secretary has pledged to boost ‘home-grown’ talent after new numbers revealed that doctors are coming from abroad in record numbers.

Around two-thirds of the 28,564 registered to practice medicine in the UK last year qualified abroad, The Telegraph reports.

While the influx of professionals from Europe has remained steady since 2016 at approximately 2,500 individuals, there has been a dramatic 400% rise in the number of medical workers arriving from other parts of the world during the same period, based on freedom of information records.

The majority were recruited from low-income countries including India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Egypt. 

Speaking to the newspaper, Mr Streeting said the health service has ‘always drawn talent’ from abroad and is ‘stronger for it’.

In spite of these statistics, the Health Secretary emphasized the point, stating, ‘However, it is evident that in recent times, the NHS has overly relied on recruiting healthcare professionals from overseas.’

Wes Streeting has said the NHS has ‘become too reliant on pulling the immigration lever’

Around two thirds of the 28,564 registering to practice medicine in the UK last year qualified abroad, the Telegraph reports 

‘It has been forced to recruit from countries on the WHO red list, which have severe shortages of their own. At the same time, straight A students in this country have been locked out of medical school due to cuts to places.’

He vowed the Government was committed to growing ‘home-grown talent’ as well as giving opportunities to people from across the UK to join the health service. 

The data shows the number of doctors coming to work in the UK from outside the European Economic Area rose every year since 2016, from 3,431 to last year’s record high of 16,913.

The number of medics trained in the UK joining the register rose from 7,180 to 9,285. 

This means he proportion of UK-trained doctors joining the General Medical Council’s (GMC) register each year has fallen from 56.2 per cent to 32.5 per cent.

This is the second warning this week that the Cabinet minister has laid on the NHS, with the MP for Ilford North warning diversity and inclusion in the service had gone too far with some staff now promoting ‘anti-whiteness’.

On Tuesday, he said there are some ‘really daft things’ being done in the name of equality that risk undermining its cause adding that the health service must get back to the fundamentals of what equality means, so everyone gets high quality care.

Highlighting an example of an NHS worker who ‘merrily tweeted a job advert’ saying she practiced ‘anti-whiteness’, Mr Streeting said: ‘What the hell does that say to the bloke up in Wigan who’s more likely to die earlier than his ore affluent counterparts down in London?

Despite this, the Health Secretary added: ‘But there is no doubt that, in recent years, the NHS has become too reliant on pulling the immigration lever’

Mr Streeting said the health service must get back to the fundamentals of what equality means, so everyone gets high quality care (pictured: Graffiti on side of the Rich Mix cinema and Community arts hub in Shoreditch, London) 

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said there are some ‘really daft things’ being done in the name of equality that risk undermining its cause

The prevalence of equality, diversion and inclusion jobs in government and business has faced growing scrutiny following a boom which began in 2020

‘We’ve got real issues of inequality that affect white working class people.’

The prevalence of equality, diversion and inclusion jobs in government and business has faced growing scrutiny following a boom which began in 2020.

In 2023, the then Conservative health secretary Steve Barclay ordered the NHS not to recruit any more specialist EDI roles but health chiefs refused to obey his instructions.

Some 35 such roles have been advertised since Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Government won the last general election – equal to one per week.

All but six of the positions allowed staff to work from home and some posts offered salaries of more than £80,000.

Mr Streeting said there are some ‘real racial inequalities’ in health that need addressing, including black men being twice as likely as white men to die of prostate cancer and black women being three times as likely as white women to die in childbirth.

But he insisted the ‘ideological hobby horses need to go’, adding that ‘what’s been lost, I think, with some well-meaning but misguided approaches to equality, diversity, inclusion – the clue is in the name – it’s equality, it should be applicable to everyone.

‘And where we see health inequalities, whether they affect men and women, black people, white people, rich and poor, we’ve got to be take a much more evidence-based approach to those inequalities, and say if you’re on the wrong end of the stats, we want to deal with that to make sure we get equality of outcome.’

Speaking at an event hosted by Macmillan Cancer Support to mark World Cancer Day, Mr Streeting said he could ‘save loads of money’ and ‘get quite a lot of plaudits’ by axing EDI roles altogether but he plans to keep them as he believes they deliver some benefits.

Asked if the battle to keep them was a political fight he was willing to have, Mr Streeting said: ‘Yeah, but I also need the profession to help.

‘And sometimes there are some really daft things being done in the name of equality, diversity and inclusion, which undermined the cause.’

A GMC spokesman told the newspaper: ‘Doctors from overseas bring skills and experience, and are hugely valuable to the UK’s health services. 

‘International doctors and UK graduates seeking registration through the examination route must all pass a robust assessment to demonstrate they meet the high standards patients rightly deserve, before being able to practise in the UK.’