Vorwort des Herausgebers
Welcome to the 2005 edition of the guide ‘Working in Britain’.
Since the last edition there have again been some updates which we tried to incorporate.
But some major changes are about to happen with regards to the training of junior doctors in the United Kingdom. Particularly if you are
still in specialist training we advise you to follow the debate over the next few months as these changes will most definitively impact on your career and certain parts of the current handout might be outdated.
The annual induction course ‘Working in Britain’ of the Anglo-German Medical Society (AGMS) has been a huge success for the sixth year running. The demand for this course remains high which appears to be a reflection of the fact that the United Kingdom is still hugely attractive for foreign medical graduates. However, we have seen some substantial changes over last few years. While traditionally mostly junior doctors used to be attracted to make the move we know see more and more hospital specialists and General Practitioners interested in exploring a new health system and a different country. This might be partly due to dissatisfaction in their respective home countries or to the fact that both income and training in the United Kingdom remain attractive. But as already indicated things will change within the National Health Service (NHS). Namely the competition is getting tougher. Thousands of junior doctors could leave the NHS because of an emerging workforce planning disaster, the British Medical Association
(BMA) recently warned.
Competition for doctors’ training posts in the NHS has become intense. Over a third of the 235 junior hospital doctors who responded to a BMA
survey in June 2005 said they had not been offered jobs when their current contracts end in August. Six in ten said they would leave the NHS to work overseas if, in future, they were unable to get an appropriate training post. A third said they would consider leaving medicine altogether. In recent years, the number of newly qualified doctors and doctors from overseas seeking training posts has increased. However, the problem is also partly the result of the move to the new Modernising Medical Careers training system, under which the middle grade Senior House Officer post is being abolished.
Instead, junior doctors will begin their careers in two-year foundation programmes, before entering specialist training. It will therefore be even harder for foreign graduates to get into good training posts. This means that good preparation and planning become even more important and we hope that both this handbook and the AGMS course will give some guidance how to go about applying in the UK successfully.
The problems of longstanding underfunding of the National Health Service are obvious to anybody who has worked in the UK. In spite of that, most people still enjoy their experience, the friendly working atmosphere, the flat hierarchies and the often excellent postgraduate training. Many people who come to work in the UK re-discover what an exciting subject medicine can be. After all, it is not only a great responsibility but also a privilege looking after patients’ wellbeing. We hope that you will have an enjoyable and rewarding time in the United Kingdom like we did (some of us still do) and we wish you good luck.
OK, July 2005
Since the last edition there have again been some updates which we tried to incorporate.
But some major changes are about to happen with regards to the training of junior doctors in the United Kingdom. Particularly if you are
still in specialist training we advise you to follow the debate over the next few months as these changes will most definitively impact on your career and certain parts of the current handout might be outdated.
The annual induction course ‘Working in Britain’ of the Anglo-German Medical Society (AGMS) has been a huge success for the sixth year running. The demand for this course remains high which appears to be a reflection of the fact that the United Kingdom is still hugely attractive for foreign medical graduates. However, we have seen some substantial changes over last few years. While traditionally mostly junior doctors used to be attracted to make the move we know see more and more hospital specialists and General Practitioners interested in exploring a new health system and a different country. This might be partly due to dissatisfaction in their respective home countries or to the fact that both income and training in the United Kingdom remain attractive. But as already indicated things will change within the National Health Service (NHS). Namely the competition is getting tougher. Thousands of junior doctors could leave the NHS because of an emerging workforce planning disaster, the British Medical Association
(BMA) recently warned.
Competition for doctors’ training posts in the NHS has become intense. Over a third of the 235 junior hospital doctors who responded to a BMA
survey in June 2005 said they had not been offered jobs when their current contracts end in August. Six in ten said they would leave the NHS to work overseas if, in future, they were unable to get an appropriate training post. A third said they would consider leaving medicine altogether. In recent years, the number of newly qualified doctors and doctors from overseas seeking training posts has increased. However, the problem is also partly the result of the move to the new Modernising Medical Careers training system, under which the middle grade Senior House Officer post is being abolished.
Instead, junior doctors will begin their careers in two-year foundation programmes, before entering specialist training. It will therefore be even harder for foreign graduates to get into good training posts. This means that good preparation and planning become even more important and we hope that both this handbook and the AGMS course will give some guidance how to go about applying in the UK successfully.
The problems of longstanding underfunding of the National Health Service are obvious to anybody who has worked in the UK. In spite of that, most people still enjoy their experience, the friendly working atmosphere, the flat hierarchies and the often excellent postgraduate training. Many people who come to work in the UK re-discover what an exciting subject medicine can be. After all, it is not only a great responsibility but also a privilege looking after patients’ wellbeing. We hope that you will have an enjoyable and rewarding time in the United Kingdom like we did (some of us still do) and we wish you good luck.
OK, July 2005
