Medical school places in Scotland should be expanded in an attempt to keep more trained doctors in the country, a senior physician has urged.
Frank Dunn, president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, has revealed that more than double the number of junior doctors leave Scotland to work abroad compared with their counterparts from other parts of the UK.
Scottish government figures show that 16.6 per cent of those who graduate in medicine from Scottish universities have left the country within three years, compared with 7.6 per cent of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The exodus is adding to concerns that Scotland faces a severe shortage of junior doctors. “We have ten applicants for every place, and these are people that are outstanding . . . maybe we should increase our university places for Scottish undergraduates. That decision would have to be taken along with universities.”
Dr Dunn said that up to 900 medical students graduated each year. About 100 of them returned to England to pursue their careers. A further 50 to 100 took a break from studying medicine or followed a different career. The reasons for the exodus included young doctors wanting to explore the world, foreign-born doctors returning home and others choosing a different career path, he said.
Advertisement
“Why do they want to leave Scotland? It shows initiative and adventure, but . . . we want to retain as many doctors we train as possible.
“We need to do everything we can to retain young doctors . . . and emphasise to them the health service in Scotland is a much healthier place than in England. They have issues with commissioning and privatisation that make the health service in England in many ways less attractive. It is puzzling that, despite that, we are not retaining them.”
At the end of this year’s recruitment drive, 20 per cent of training slots for general practice in Scotland were unfilled, while 70 per cent of senior training positions in acute medicine were vacant as well as two thirds of senior training jobs in emergency medicine.
Shona Robison, Scotland’s health secretary, said the government was “looking closely at what more can be done” regarding the terms and conditions for junior doctors. “Under this government, there are record numbers of doctors employed in NHS Scotland, and since 2006 we have seen a 23.6 per cent increase in medical staff from 9,600 to 11,868.”