Brexit has worsened the UK’s acute shortage of doctors in key areas of care and led to more than 4,000 European doctors choosing not to work in the NHS, research reveals.

The disclosure comes as growing numbers of medics quit in disillusionment at their relentlessly busy working lives in the increasingly overstretched health service. Official figures show the NHS in England alone has vacancies for 10,582 physicians.

Britain has 4,285 fewer European doctors than if the rising numbers who were coming before the Brexit vote in 2016 had been maintained since then, according to analysis by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank which it has shared with the Guardian.

In 2021, a total of 37,035 medics from the EU and European free trade area (EFTA) were working in the UK. However, there would have been 41,320 – or 4,285 more – if the decision to leave the EU had not triggered a “slowdown” in medical recruitment from the EU and the EFTA quartet of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein.

As farms began to panic about a likely shortage of labour caused by Brexit, the seasonal worker visa was presented as a panacea.

Just 2,500 people came to Britain in a pilot of the scheme in 2019. But when the predicted shortage came to pass the following year, it was expanded rapidly, before an assessment of the pilot could be concluded.

About 40,000 people will come to the UK under the seasonal worker scheme this year, and there are increasing concerns that the hastily constructed programme puts workers at risk of labour exploitation.

When the government review of the pilot was finally slipped out on Christmas Eve last year, it had some concerning polling from workers. It showed 29% of labourers said operators did not adhere to contractual agreements, almost half did not receive a contract in their native language, and 15% said their accommodation was not safe, comfortable, hygienic or warm.

During the Conservative leadership race, Liz Truss signalled her intention to expand the scheme, pledging: “We will make it easier for farmers and growers to access the workers they need, with a short-term expansion to the seasonal workers scheme, while working with industry to address longer-term skills shortages.”

A recent report from the Association of Labour Providers said the Home Office and Defra had not engaged with industry experts in establishing the rules, leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation.

The U.K. government is starting an investigation into just how badly labor shortages, Brexit and surging commodity prices are hurting the country’s food industry.

A lack of key workers such as truck drivers is pushing businesses toward losses and causing knock-on issues for consumers, said Neil Parish, chair of the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. In a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel, he highlighted livestock stuck on farms due to meat-processing bottlenecks and lower chicken production closing some food outlets.

The committee set an initial Oct. 8 deadline for its inquiry and is seeking insight into issues including:

The outlook for labor shortages in the coming months and years.

What impact a timetable for physical checks at the border on food and live animal imports from the EU will have on current supply-chain problems.

Whether the government needs to take more action to support the food supply chain.