British Medical Association: medical students say they may leave Northern Ireland over pay and conditions

More than half of medical students who responded to a survey said they were either planning to leave Northern Ireland or are undecided about their future after they graduate.

And the majority of those cited pay and conditions as their main reason.

The survey from the British Medical Association (BMA) suggested doctors' pay and workplace conditions in the region are forcing many medical students to plan for careers in health systems elsewhere.

However, most medical students said they did plan to remain in medicine after graduation - with only a small percentage saying they might consider a change of career.

Final and penultimate year medical students at Northern Ireland's two medical schools were asked to complete a survey on their career intentions once they graduate, including whether they plan to stay and work in the region and what factors are influencing their decisions.

Over half of the respondents (54%) said they were either planning to leave Northern Ireland or are currently undecided where they will work once they finish their training.

Other survey findings include:

• Over 66% of those who do plan to leave say they are heading to Australia to work.

• Of those who reported planning to leave either Northern Ireland or medicine entirely after foundation training, more than 81% said their decision was because of pay and conditions, followed by the poor state of the health service, and over 51% cited poor experiences of training or medical education as their reason for leaving.

• 3.92% of respondents consider doctors' pay, and reward is fair in Northern Ireland.

• More than 83% of respondents said that "improved pay" would encourage them to remain in Northern Ireland to continue training, with almost 77% citing "improved working conditions".

• Those choosing to stay in Northern Ireland cite family and support networks as the overwhelming reason to remain here.

As part of the survey, respondents were asked for further comments on why they were looking to work as doctors outside of Northern Ireland:

“I would love to stay in Northern Ireland, but if better pay and training opportunities can be achieved elsewhere, I will move.”

“I honestly dread the thought of working as an F1 (foundation programme year 1) in NI with current conditions. Extremely sad after five years you should be excited to graduate and work.”

Milan Kapoor, chairman of BMA's Northern Ireland medical students' committee (NIMSC), said: "It should be deeply concerning to all of us that a significant number of medical students on the verge of graduating are already planning for careers elsewhere after they complete foundation training.

"Northern Ireland medical students graduate with high levels of debt.

"They also have first-hand experience of workplace pressures in the health service and this has a huge impact on the quality of education and training while on clinical placements.

"It should therefore come as no surprise that they are looking elsewhere for better pay and training quality in health systems outside of Northern Ireland."

He added: "However, this can be turned around.

"Over 90% of those surveyed said they still wanted to pursue a career in medicine so it is imperative that the Government do all they can to encourage these newly qualified doctors to stay here for the duration of their careers.

"Aside from addressing doctors pay and workplace conditions, one area they can tackle to help this is fixing the unfair and complicated student finance system.

"It saddles students with a large amount of debt as soon as they start work and penalises those from lower-socio economic backgrounds from studying medicine. These debts are another factor in resident doctors' seeking work in better paid health systems in other countries."

Dr Alan Stout, chairman of BMA's Northern Ireland Council, said the findings "sounded an alarm for an increasing workforce crisis".

He said: "We owe it to the patient population to encourage these doctors of the future to stay and work in Northern Ireland.

"That means valuing doctors with timely and adequate pay uplifts alongside targeted workforce planning. Long-term, we need to see urgent roll-out of HSC transformation as outlined in countless transformation reports, and transformation that is properly funded by ring-fenced, multi-year budgets."

The survey was open between January 20 and February and received a total of 191 responses out of a total of 770 final and penultimate year students at Ulster University and Queen's University Belfast.