The UK has the second lowest number of doctors in leading European nations relative to its population, according to research for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

With 2.8 doctors per 1,000 people, compared with an average of 3.5 doctors across the OECD, the UK shortage is second only to Poland.

This shortfall of doctors persists despite the OECD research showing that British GPs and specialists in the UK earn more than three times the average national salary.

The OECD report, which examined data between 2000 and 2017, also highlighted the UK’s reliance on foreign-trained medics, with 28.7% of British doctors qualifying abroad, the fifth highest figure in Europe. At 15%, the UK had the second highest proportion of nurses trained abroad, after Switzerland.

However, over the past decade, the UK’s share of foreign-trained doctors has decreased slightly as the number of domestically trained doctors increased more quickly. This is in contrast to Germany and France, where the number and share of foreign-trained doctors grew steadily between 2007 and 2017.

Separately, NHS figures show that the UK’s deficit of family doctors has also left some patients without the choice of seeing a GP of the same gender as them, with nearly one in 10 practices in England not having a regular female GP.

Patients at more than 600 practices only have regular access to a male GP, although they have the right to ask for a female locum. Despite there being slightly more female than male GPs across the country, in some areas three out of four GPs are male.

The findings follow a report by health experts earlier this year that the NHS will never recover from its chronic staffing shortages, which warned that “radical changes” regarding staffing are necessary.

The report by the King’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation said: “The shortfall in the number of GPs is so serious that it cannot be filled at all. The only way forward is to use the skills of other staff, including pharmacists and physiotherapists, much more widely and routinely in and alongside general practice.”