The NHS depends on doctors in training progressing to become consultants. However, more doctors are now stepping away from training, changing career direction, or leaving UK practice altogether.
This creates a challenge for the future workforce. Even though overall resident doctor numbers look healthy – due to international recruitment – there are growing concerns about whether there will be enough consultants to meet rising patient demand, especially as the population ages.
“Leaving” is not always straightforward. Doctors may take breaks, switch pathways, work fewer hours, or move into different roles. This makes it difficult to clearly understand what is happening, why it is happening, and how best to support doctors to continue their training and careers in the NHS.
What is the project doing?
This project brings together existing research to better understand why doctors leave training – and what might help them stay.
Rather than simply summarising studies, we are looking across a wide range of evidence, including academic research and reports from organisations such as the BMA and Royal Colleges. We use this to explore:
- what influences doctors’ decisions to stay or leave
- how these factors play out in different situations
- why some approaches to improving retention work better than others
We look for patterns across the evidence to build a clearer picture of what is happening and why.
Our findings are shaped through discussion with resident doctors, patients, and people with experience in medical training and NHS workforce policy.
This project aims to develop a clearer, evidence-informed understanding of resident doctor retention. This work will:
- Support more effective and realistic approaches to improving retention, and
- Inform evidence-based recommendations for policy and employers.
Outputs from the project will include a published protocol, a full synthesis of findings, a set of recommendations to inform policy and support employers. A further paper will explore how ‘retention’ is defined and understood in this context.
Chief Investigator:
Dr Anna Melvin
Joint Lead Applicant:
Professor Karen Mattick
Co-investigators:
Dr Daniele Carrieri, Dr Florence Lock, Dr Kevin Teoh, Dr Priya Patel, Dr Simon Briscoe, Professor Geoff Wong
ARC South West Staff
