§ Mr. Michael Brownasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many doctors have emigrated from the United Kingdom since 1 January 1975.
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§ Dr. VaughanI regret that information on permanent emigrants since 1975 is not available. Like any other United Kingdom national, United Kingdom doctors are free to enter or leave the country at any time without informing any official body. Migration statistics may be obtained only by the indirect method of comparing information about all doctors on the medical register in a given year with those on the register in the following year. Since doctors may let their registration lapse for a number of reasons other than emigration, or may maintain their registration even though they have left the country, a complicated process of checking is necessary and this is inevitably slow.