Britain's growing reputation as a 'racist country hostile to foreigners' is backfiring on the NHS, says doctors' leader

Martin Shipton

Foreign doctors and nurses are increasingly shunning the NHS because anti-migrant rhetoric and rising racism have created a hostile environment, according to a leading figure in the medical profession.

Jeanette Dickson chairs the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents the professional interests of the UK and Ireland’s 220,000 doctors, including GPs, surgeons, anaesthetists and A&E specialists.

She told the Guardian that the health service was being put at risk because overseas health professionals increasingly see the UK as an “unwelcoming, racist” country, in part because of the government’s tough approach to immigration.

Record numbers of foreign-born doctors are quitting the NHS and the post-Brexit surge in those coming to work in it has stalled. At the same time, the number of nurses and midwives joining the NHS has fallen sharply over the past year.

Ms Dickson said that without the contribution of foreign doctors and nurses the NHS “could quite easily fall over” and find itself without “a critical mass of people there to run the service safely”.

Foreign-born doctors and nurses were being put off by antagonism by politicians towards migrants, media coverage of immigration, the racist abuse of international medical graduates by NHS colleagues and racist aggression by patients toward minority ethnic NHS staff, she said.

“My feeling is we are creating a culture where the rhetoric is ‘foreigner bad’,” she said. “If you have never visited Britain and are looking at our media, the social media, press media, print media, what our politicians are reported as saying, I think that it’s not unreasonable to see that as a hostile environment,” said Ms Dickson, herself an NHS consultant clinical oncologist.”

“Because [foreign health staff] see Britain retreating from Europe, ‘we can go it alone’. They see attacks on synagogues, they see anti-Muslim protests. They see the rhetoric that immigration is bad, [that] immigration is a major problem for the country.

“Why would you go somewhere where people are going, ‘we don’t need you, we don’t want you’? For them that makes Britain appear unwelcoming, racist. The prevalence of it [hostility to migrants] is significantly more [than] 10 years ago.”

'Unsafe'

The atmosphere in the UK towards migrants is now so unpleasant that some foreign-born NHS staff feel unsafe in their everyday lives, Ms Dickson added.

Selina Douglas, the chief executive of the Whittington health trust in London, told a public meeting in November 2025 that hospital and community-based staff were experiencing a rise in racism.

Referring to overseas nurses who have worked here for 25 years, Ms Douglas said: “Those staff are being racially abused in our hospital. I have had staff spat at walking up the hill [from the tube station].”

Lindsay Whittle won the Caerphilly Senedd by-election in October, defeating both Reform UK, which had high hopes of winning the seat, and Labour, which had previously held it since the outset of devolution in 1999.

During the campaign, Reform spent much of the time trying to stoke racial tensions for political advantage by implying that the Welsh Government’s Nation of Sanctuary programme involved spending money on people who arrived in the UK on small boats. Instead, more than 91% of the scheme’s budget was spent on resettling refugees who had fled Ukraine following Putin’s brutal invasion of their country.

'Appalling'

Mr Whittle told Nation.Cymru: “This is absolutely appalling and shows the damage that can be done by creating a climate of hatred.

“We owe a debt of gratitude to the foreign doctors and nurses who keep the NHS going. Years ago, when my sister was very ill, it was the care she received from four young doctors - all of them from overseas - that saved her life.

“It makes me very sad that people could be abusive towards doctors and nurses who are doing what they can to treat patients and save their lives. They are all heroes and deserve to be treated as such.

“I have been deeply shocked by racist comments I have read on social media attacking immigrants generally, blaming them for everything you can imagine. It’s totally disgraceful and has been encouraged by some politicians and political parties who know exactly what they are doing.

A spokesperson for the Welsh Government said: “Racism is abhorrent and has no place in our NHS or society.

“Through our Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan, we are working with NHS Wales to deliver lasting change with zero tolerance for racial inequality or abuse. Policies such as Speaking Up Safely, Healthier Working Relationships, and Respect and Resolution protect staff and ensure concerns are acted upon.”

Reform UK was invited to comment, but did not respond to our message.