Abstract
The retention crisis of medical staff in the NHS has been attracting publicity for wasting skills and the lost high-cost investment in medical training. Especially important, given the feminisation of the UK medical profession, is the retention of women doctors following maternity leave. This study focuses a cohort of female doctors (n=3,992) who re-joined the NHS in 2015 following maternity leave. Using Cox proportional hazard models of departure risk, and a research design that is longitudinal (until 2020) with repeated measures, we provide a multi-level analysis of factors (individual, career, job and organisation) that influence voluntary exit decisions. By using measures of actual exit, not intention to exit, we contribute to theory by arguing that organisation turnover models should reflect the dynamic nature of the antecedents of turnover. We find that different factors are influential in different time periods and these factors are not uniformly experienced by all female doctors.