Jul 31, 2026 · 54 min · 13 segments
An NHS campaign group posts on social media to celebrate the organisation's overseas workers, but there's a backlash from people who think we should have more British-born doctors and nurses. Would…
David ShipleyGuest
Adam FlemingHostOyindaGuestCatherine MarshleckGuest
I think what stuck out to me, first of all, is that, of course, the NHS broadly is using about the same ratio of foreign nationals to British nationals as the rest of the
So I think it's about 30% of nurses and about 36% of doctors are foreign nationals in the NHS.
What are we achieving in doing this? I think my concern is that we are saving ourselves lots of money.
Of course we are, because we're not spending the quarter of a million pounds per doctor that we train.
We're just hiring in people who have been trained by other countries, funded by other countries' taxpayers.
And Nigeria's level of doctors per 10,000 people has actually dropped in recent years.
And if you go to Nigerian press, they're talking about the fact that thousands of Nigerian doctors have gone to the UK.
I don't think it's particularly moral to rely on countries which are substantially poorer to train doctors, which we then hire, rather than doing what a rich country should do and pay for its own medical staff or hire them from other rich countries.
Do you know something? That statement there just rubbed me off some type of way because I see something here that he's just said, which is that he doesn't think it's moral for the country to hire the doctors from quote-unquote poorer countries.
I think what stuck out to me, first of all, is that, of course, the NHS broadly is using about the same ratio of foreign nationals to British nationals as the rest of the
So I think it's about 30% of nurses and about 36% of doctors are foreign nationals in the NHS.
What are we achieving in doing this? I think my concern is that we are saving ourselves lots of money.
Of course we are, because we're not spending the quarter of a million pounds per doctor that we train.
We're just hiring in people who have been trained by other countries, funded by other countries' taxpayers.
And Nigeria's level of doctors per 10,000 people has actually dropped in recent years.
And if you go to Nigerian press, they're talking about the fact that thousands of Nigerian doctors have gone to the UK.
I don't think it's particularly moral to rely on countries which are substantially poorer to train doctors, which we then hire, rather than doing what a rich country should do and pay for its own medical staff or hire them from other rich countries.
Do you know something? That statement there just rubbed me off some type of way because I see something here that he's just said, which is that he doesn't think it's moral for the country to hire the doctors from quote-unquote poorer countries.
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