"The figure of 752,000 Flag-4 registrations may seem large, but it accounted for just more than one in 10 of the roughly 6.5 million new GP registrations last year, a share that falls well short of the unquenchable demand Reform portrays. While the party continues to blame immigration for GP access pressures, it overlooks a central fact about the NHS workforce: More than 40 percent of doctors currently licensed to practise in the UK qualified overseas."
"Yet rhetoric tying GP shortages solely to migrant patients is becoming more frequent. These claims echo across the UK's wider far right. Tommy Robinson, the anti-Islam activist and former leader of the English Defence League, has repeatedly claimed the NHS is being swamped by the rest of the world, framing healthcare as another border to be defended. In this telling, the NHS becomes the last national institution under siege from migration. Yet the NHS is woven into Britain's sense of itself."
Reform UK attributed GP access pressures to high migration levels and cited 752,000 Flag-4 GP registrations last year. Flag-4 counts people whose previous address was outside the UK for three months or more and can include returning British residents as well as new arrivals. The 752,000 registrations represented just over one in ten of about 6.5 million new GP registrations. More than 40 percent of doctors licensed to practise in the UK qualified overseas, and international graduates comprise the majority of new medical-register entrants. Far-right figures portray the NHS as overwhelmed by migration despite its reliance on migrant healthcare workers. Almost every citizen has used the NHS.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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