Jeremy Hunt plans to fine junior doctors who move abroad less than four years after medical school
Health Secretary also plans to train 25 per cent more doctors to cut the need to import foreign medics
JUNIOR doctors could be hit by massive fines if they move abroad less than four years after qualifying, Jeremy Hunt is expected to announce today.
Trainee medics will have to promise to work in the NHS for the minimum period or be made to repay some of the £220,000 it costs taxpayers to train each one.
The Health Secretary is also unveiling a £100m plan to tackle the NHS recruitment crisis by training an extra 1,500 doctors a year - up by 25 per cent.
It is meant to cut the need to import thousands of doctors from abroad.
He wants to make the NHS in England, where a quarter of medics are from overseas, “self-sufficient” by the middle of the next decade.
Mr Hunt will lift the 6,000 cap on the number of native doctors trained in Britain's medical colleges to bring in an extra 1,500 a year.
Around 5,000 doctors are estimated to leave the UK every year, attracted by higher pay and better hours.
Health chiefs will use the "return of service" model used in the armed forces, under which fighter pilots must serve for 12 years after training that costs £4million.
Mr Hunt will tell the Tory party conference in Birmingham today how he will lift the current cap on the number of medical students, which forces universities to turn away half of applicants.
He wants to end the reliance on doctors from abroad.
He is expected to say: “Overseas doctors do a fantastic job and we have been clear we want EU nationals who are already here to be able to stay post-Brexit.
“But is it right to import doctors from poorer countries that need them while turning away bright home graduates desperate to study medicine?
“From September 2018, we will train up to 1,500 more doctors every year, increasing the number of medical school places by up to a quarter.
“By the end of the next Parliament the NHS will be self-sufficient in doctors.”
It is thought the recruitment drive will cost £100 million by 2020. But ministers hope it will slash the £1.2billion a year spent on locums, many from overseas.
Diane Abbott, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said: “The idea we can be self-sufficient in medical staff is nonsense.”
The BMA’s chair Mark Porter added: “This announcement falls far short of what is needed. This initiative will not stop the NHS needing to recruit overseas staff.”