Could international students help to plug dental workforce gaps in the NHS? Amirali Ziaebrahimi explains why small tweaks in immigration policy could have a positive impact on the profession.
International dental students in the UK may not form the majority of any given cohort, but they represent a uniquely positioned and vastly underutilised group within the future NHS workforce. These students – self-funded, highly trained to UK standards, culturally and ethically integrated – could be a real asset in addressing workforce shortages, if only the system made room for them.
Let’s look at the numbers. Most UK dental schools accept around five international students per cohort. With 16 dental schools, that’s approximately 80 students per year. Now compare that to the annual 500 to 600 candidates who pass the overseas registration examination (ORE) and enter UK dentistry through a much-debated route. That means UK-trained international graduates could provide roughly 10% of what the UK currently absorbs through ORE-qualified dentists – yet with a crucial difference: they’ve already been trained and assessed under the UK system.
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