As far as EU law coming " into the equation " and " crap medical schools for the last 30 years or so " ....
around 2/5 of the 239,000 doctors on the GMC medical register are foreign – trained ( 88,000 ), including 23,000 from Europe.
Our medical schools are not crap, they are all of high standard and there’s no shortage of applicants.
The situation is complicated.
• The EU Working Time Directive limits doctors in training to a 48 hour week. Individuals can opt out but doctors’ rotas can’t be planned on the assumption that they all will. The effects of the Directive are to impact adversely on training, costs, and staffing levels. About a quarter of junior doctors drop out of their NHS training after 2 years. This has caused a discrepancy between the numbers of doctors we’re training in the UK and the number actually needed. Hence the high proportion of foreign doctors working here. The Directive is being reviewed, but only slowly.
• It’s a myth that UK can’t ban EU doctors, if they can’t speak adequate English or there are concerns about their medical ability. Language checks – required for non EU doctors like joeblogg’s wife – are not explicitly imposed by EU law, but neither are they outlawed. That’s the responsibility of future employers.
