The UK is at risk of losing hundreds of GPs because of home office red tape, the Government has been warned.

The Royal College of GPs has called for newly qualified GPs to be given automatic and indefinite leave to remain, warning many face deportation at the end of their training. GP training has been hugely expanded in the last few years – but over the last year 47% of trainees have been international medical graduates, the college warned.

Yesterday the college wrote to home secretary Priti Patel calling for her to cut through the bureaucracy that overseas doctors face and grant them indefinite leave to remain. It argues that GP trainees suffer disadvantages under current rules which do allow overseas doctors to apply for indefinite leave to remain but after five years in the UK. GP training only lasts for three years.

College chair Professor Martin Marshall said: “General practice is working incredibly hard, under intense workload and workforce pressures. To meet this growing demand, it is vital to increase the size of the general practice workforce. We need to train more GPs, and recent years have seen significant progress on this. This success has depended heavily on international medical graduates coming to train and then work as GPs in the UK. Unfortunately, current visa regulations mean these trainees face significant bureaucracy if they wish to remain in UK general practice after completing training, putting both their contributions and the NHS’s investment at risk.”

Professor Marshall said: “If all IMGs were offered the chance to apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK on successful completion of GP specialty training, they would be able to join the GP workforce, providing much-needed care to patients, and helping to alleviate pressures right across the health service. At a time when general practice is experiencing the most severe workload pressures it has ever known, it is nonsensical that the NHS is going to the expense of training hundreds of GPs each year who then face potential deportation by the Home Office because of an entirely avoidable visa issue. We cannot afford to lose this expertise and willingness to work in the NHS, delivering care to patients, due to red tape.”