This is one of the many negative consequences of leaving Europe. Brexit has worsened the shortage of doctors in the UK, leading to an estimated shortage of 4,000 doctors from the European Union in four major specialties, according to a study published on Sunday by a think tank specializing in health.
This study, carried out on the initiative of the daily newspaper The Guardian, is published while the public health system (NOS) suffers from many difficulties after years of austerity, with record waiting lists in hospitals due to the pandemic of Covid-19, but also to shortages of doctors and nurses.
The Nuffield Trust looked at four specialties – anaesthesia, paediatrics, cardio-thoracic surgery and psychiatry – in which European doctors were particularly represented before the UK’s exit from the EU. In these four specialties, already experiencing tensions in their recruitment, “the increase in staff from the EU or countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA, namely Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) has slowed “, shows the study.
Visas, traffic rules, working conditions…
If the pre-Brexit trend had continued, there should have been more than 41,000 EU and EFTA doctors registered in 2021, at least 4,000 more than the numbers actually seen. For the Nuffield Trust, “the campaign and the result of the (2016) referendum on leaving the EU is the obvious reason for this change in trend”.
In question: initially the uncertainty about the new rules for the movement of people, then the tightening of the rules for granting visas, and finally a “deterioration of working conditions” in general in the health system.
“These results suggest that the stagnation in the number of EU-origin doctors in these specialties has exacerbated existing shortages in areas where the NOS is unable to find skilled labor elsewhere,” adds the Minister. ‘study.