Dedworth
15th August 2013, 19:40
Says a consultant surgeon at The Royal Marsden Hospital
Hiring too many foreign doctors 'puts lives at risk': Senior surgeon criticises poor language skills and lack of training
Just over half of new doctors each year come from British medical schools
Dr J Meirion Thomas said too many foreign doctors had poor language skills
He also said many had not received up-to-date training in their country
Patients are being put at risk because no fewer than 40 per cent of doctors taken on by the NHS every year are foreign, a top cancer surgeon has warned.
Dr J Meirion Thomas said far too many of them had poor language skills, knew nothing about our culture and had not received up-to-date training in their own country.
Out of around 13,000 new doctors registered by the General Medical Council every year, just 7,000 come from British medical schools.
Meanwhile the NHS is becoming a ‘bonanza’ for doctors arriving in increasing numbers from Greece, Spain and eastern Europe.
Dr Thomas, a consultant surgeon at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, also hit out at the poor quality of family doctors, saying the only reason A&E departments were at ‘breaking point’ was because many GPs were ‘not good enough’.
Dr Thomas has already exposed failings in the NHS in a series of trenchant articles for the Daily Mail. Earlier this year he raised the alarm over the number of foreign patients being treated for free by the NHS, saying it was costing taxpayers millions of pounds a year.
In an article for The Spectator magazine this week, he called on Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to scrap expensive NHS IT schemes and spend the billions saved on ‘training more British doctors’.
‘This is an essential building block of a durable recovery,’ he said.
He went on: ‘Most readers will be surprised to learn that every year, we import 40 per cent of our doctors because of insufficient training places in British medical schools.
‘We encourage young people to become doctors, then we slap them back for want of places.
‘So 40 per cent of doctors starting work in the NHS every year have little or no knowledge and experience of British culture or of our Health Service – and this in the most people-centric occupation of all. It really does matter.’
Dr Thomas blamed the Government for not wanting to pay for more expensive places – a failing which was opening the door to doctors from Europe and beyond. ‘From the foreign doc’s perspective, working for the NHS is a bonanza,’ he said. ‘European doctors fly in to cover locum vacancies, especially in general practice. There is no test of language proficiency before registering.
‘As a result of austerity in southern Europe, there has been a significant increase in GMC registrations of newly-qualified doctors from Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and especially eastern Europe.’He said the reliance on overseas doctors meant there were real risks to patient safety. ‘Importing doctors from abroad might not be a bad thing if there were any guarantee the entry criteria to foreign medical schools were as rigorous as our own,’ he said.
‘A GMC survey published in the British Medical Journal recently showed foreign-trained doctors were up to four times more likely to be suspended or struck off than their UK colleagues. Defenders of the system say there are filters in place to weed out dodgy doctors.
‘But where was the filter that checked the competence of Dr Daniel Ubani, a Nigerian-born German citizen who on his first GP locum in the UK unlawfully killed a 70-year-old man?’
Dr Thomas also used his article to hit out at GPs, saying they were so old-fashioned that patients had no option but to turn up at hard-pressed A&E departments.
‘Modern medicine has been revolutionised by technology, little of which has filtered down into general practice,’ he said.
‘GPs cannot carry out certain essential tests quickly. It is very easy for GPs to become “de-skilled” and by mid-career some may not be well enough informed to manage serious acute illnesses.
‘No wonder, then, that patients with acute problems prefer to go to A&E; it’s because GP services aren’t good enough: which is why A&E units are at breaking point.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2394034/Hiring-foreign-doctors-puts-lives-risk-Senior-surgeon-criticises-poor-language-skills-lack-training.html#ixzz2c42bPTSB
Well done Doc Thomas for speaking out it is successive governments and the trough feeding, overpaid management who have allowed the NHS to become the shambles it now is
Hiring too many foreign doctors 'puts lives at risk': Senior surgeon criticises poor language skills and lack of training
Just over half of new doctors each year come from British medical schools
Dr J Meirion Thomas said too many foreign doctors had poor language skills
He also said many had not received up-to-date training in their country
Patients are being put at risk because no fewer than 40 per cent of doctors taken on by the NHS every year are foreign, a top cancer surgeon has warned.
Dr J Meirion Thomas said far too many of them had poor language skills, knew nothing about our culture and had not received up-to-date training in their own country.
Out of around 13,000 new doctors registered by the General Medical Council every year, just 7,000 come from British medical schools.
Meanwhile the NHS is becoming a ‘bonanza’ for doctors arriving in increasing numbers from Greece, Spain and eastern Europe.
Dr Thomas, a consultant surgeon at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, also hit out at the poor quality of family doctors, saying the only reason A&E departments were at ‘breaking point’ was because many GPs were ‘not good enough’.
Dr Thomas has already exposed failings in the NHS in a series of trenchant articles for the Daily Mail. Earlier this year he raised the alarm over the number of foreign patients being treated for free by the NHS, saying it was costing taxpayers millions of pounds a year.
In an article for The Spectator magazine this week, he called on Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to scrap expensive NHS IT schemes and spend the billions saved on ‘training more British doctors’.
‘This is an essential building block of a durable recovery,’ he said.
He went on: ‘Most readers will be surprised to learn that every year, we import 40 per cent of our doctors because of insufficient training places in British medical schools.
‘We encourage young people to become doctors, then we slap them back for want of places.
‘So 40 per cent of doctors starting work in the NHS every year have little or no knowledge and experience of British culture or of our Health Service – and this in the most people-centric occupation of all. It really does matter.’
Dr Thomas blamed the Government for not wanting to pay for more expensive places – a failing which was opening the door to doctors from Europe and beyond. ‘From the foreign doc’s perspective, working for the NHS is a bonanza,’ he said. ‘European doctors fly in to cover locum vacancies, especially in general practice. There is no test of language proficiency before registering.
‘As a result of austerity in southern Europe, there has been a significant increase in GMC registrations of newly-qualified doctors from Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and especially eastern Europe.’He said the reliance on overseas doctors meant there were real risks to patient safety. ‘Importing doctors from abroad might not be a bad thing if there were any guarantee the entry criteria to foreign medical schools were as rigorous as our own,’ he said.
‘A GMC survey published in the British Medical Journal recently showed foreign-trained doctors were up to four times more likely to be suspended or struck off than their UK colleagues. Defenders of the system say there are filters in place to weed out dodgy doctors.
‘But where was the filter that checked the competence of Dr Daniel Ubani, a Nigerian-born German citizen who on his first GP locum in the UK unlawfully killed a 70-year-old man?’
Dr Thomas also used his article to hit out at GPs, saying they were so old-fashioned that patients had no option but to turn up at hard-pressed A&E departments.
‘Modern medicine has been revolutionised by technology, little of which has filtered down into general practice,’ he said.
‘GPs cannot carry out certain essential tests quickly. It is very easy for GPs to become “de-skilled” and by mid-career some may not be well enough informed to manage serious acute illnesses.
‘No wonder, then, that patients with acute problems prefer to go to A&E; it’s because GP services aren’t good enough: which is why A&E units are at breaking point.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2394034/Hiring-foreign-doctors-puts-lives-risk-Senior-surgeon-criticises-poor-language-skills-lack-training.html#ixzz2c42bPTSB
Well done Doc Thomas for speaking out it is successive governments and the trough feeding, overpaid management who have allowed the NHS to become the shambles it now is