About the Lincolnshire Refugee Doctor Project

How LRDP Began Supporting Refugee Doctors

The Lincolnshire Refugee Doctor Project (LRDP) is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC). It began when a retired GP, Health Visitor, and NHS Chief Executive saw health communities struggling to recruit, which led to roles becoming vacant for years; this had a serious impact on the local communities that required healthcare support. Their idea was to support skilled refugee doctors in the UK continue their careers, while helping health care services in Lincolnshire fill vital gaps in care.

Our founders knew there were refugee doctors already living in the UK; qualified, experienced, and eager to return to medicine. They saw an opportunity to offer support, guidance, and training that would help these doctors register for work in the NHS, relocating to Greater Lincolnshire.

After years of support, our founders finally launched the Lincolnshire Refugee Doctor Project in North and North East Lincolnshire in 2019, with the wider county joining in 2020. Since then, LRDP has supported nearly 100 refugee and asylum-seeking doctors in the UK, helping them restart their careers and contribute to the NHS.

LRDP is driven by the belief that every qualified doctor deserves the chance to contribute and belong in the UK’s medical community.

Why the UK Needs Refugee Doctors Now

In recent years, the number of refugees coming to the UK, particularly from the Middle East, Africa and Ukraine, has increased, and the BMA currently has details of over 800 Refugee Doctors in the UK, a small number of whom are now working in the NHS.

In the same time frame, recruitment to both Primary and Secondary Care training places has decreased, particularly in the East Midlands, and the number of doctors leaving the NHS has increased, both as an effect of early retirement from NHS practice, and emigration abroad. There has never been greater need for more doctors to be recruited to work in the NHS.

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The Lincolnshire Refugee Doctor Project has three main aims:

To recruit Refugee Doctors to Greater Lincolnshire and to support them within the community here, helping them and their families to make our area their home and build positive futures
To provide them with the skills, knowledge and support required to enable them to complete the examinations in Language and Clinical Skills required by the General Medical Council (GMC), and to allow them to practice safely as medical practitioners in the UK.
To give Refugee Doctors a meaningful experience of being valued in the health communities of Greater Lincolnshire. These Doctors bring with them a wealth of skills and experience and to support them to continue in a career they love and have spent many years training to do is a privilege.

See what our members say about our programme

“LRDP, you have made our lives brighter. Thank you for always being by my side and helping me. I truly don’t know what I would have done without your generous help”

Final programme feedback, Dr EA.

Some of the benefits of our programme:

Humanitarian support to refugee doctors and their families, supporting them with an opportunity to begin rebuilding their lives and careers, putting down roots and feeling welcomed and included in our local communities.
Humanitarian opportunities for people and organisations in Lincolnshire to help refugee families.
Helping local Trusts to stabilise their workforce by introducing a further source of doctors for a struggling community where doctors retiring and leaving outnumber new doctors arising.
Workforce diversification and development through inclusion of a pool of doctors with very different stories and journeys into the Greater Lincolnshire medical environment.

Apply for the programme

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