Doctors leaving the NHS early should ‘resign’, not ‘retire’

“The NHS is a crap employer. It has the crappiest record on employment of any west European country,” said Dr Chris Manning, the co-chair of Primary Care Mental Health Education, at a conference on doctors under stress at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on 15 November.

Although he admitted to having had depression for a long time, Dr Manning was the most ebullient speaker of the day. With regard to stress in general practitioners, he believed that a lot of the newer recruits were going to put themselves first, “because the message they get is that the country doesn't care about you.” Having retired from the NHS on health grounds himself, he questioned what was going to come out of this conference, saying, “there are a lot of us who are getting fired up about this.” He suggested that doctors who leave the NHS earlier than planned should