Medical Student Places
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Grocott
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My noble friend is an advocate for everything Wales. Of course, I will do exactly that: congratulations all round.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, we have heard about trained medical staff going to work overseas. We are also very familiar, of course, with the other end of the discussion. Many trained medical staff come from overseas to work in our country, to the great benefit of the health service. Surely, the answer to both those challenges has to be for us to train and retain medical staff in this country, neither exporting them somewhere else nor being entirely dependent on imports from somewhere else.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I agree with the noble Lord. That is why the long-term workforce plan commits to improving retention by improving the culture and leadership to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff will leave the NHS over the next 15 years. But the noble Lord is absolutely right: doctors from overseas, trained in third-world countries and elsewhere, come to our country and, as the noble Baroness said earlier, also go to attractive places such as Australia. As I say, young people like to experiment with other countries but do come back. It is also a testament to the NHS that so many foreign-trained doctors decide to practise here.