News

Foreign doctors account for 'excessive' fitness-to-practise complaints

03-Jul-08

Excessive numbers of foreign doctors are continuing to be hauled up before the GMC.

NHS trusts and the police account for twice the proportion of complaints about foreign doctors as UK graduates.
Over 27 per cent of complaints about foreign doctors come from trusts and the police, against 14 per cent for UK doctors.

The GMC has found that there are excess foreign doctors at each stage of fitness to practise from complaints to hearings.

‘The international medical graduate profile is skewed in terms of complaints from persons acting in a public capacity. The question is why?' said Paul Philip, GMC's director of standards and fitness to practise.

Last year's GMC ethnicity survey was intended to help explain the discrepancies but response has only reached 60 per cent. A second trawl hopes to boost response rates to 70-80 per cent.

‘Council wishes to explore further why we've got this apparent imbalance in fitness to practise. Simply describing it for another year is unsatisfactory,' said Council president Professor Sir Graeme Catto.

The GMC is embarking on a multi-pronged research programme with the Economic and Social Research Council to understand why foreign doctors figure so prominently in its fitness-to-practise activities.

prisca.middlemiss@haymarket.com

GMC website

Comment below and tell us what you think

Comments

Michael Brookman

03/07/2008

UK training is better?

Kazzie

03/07/2008

Are all "foreigners" from the same country? what about those countries where the training is better than the UK?

Rupen Kulkarni

04/07/2008

There are individual cases where foreign doctors could possibly be deficient in communication and training but

having trained in the UK for years, one cannot duck away from the issue of discrimination. It is rife in all shades of grey

in all aspects of life, overt or subconcious, institutional or otherwise. A lot has been done in recent years to acknowledge

this and a lot more needs to be done to address this. Upholding standards of care is fundamental. Matters of 'Fitness to

Practice' based on poor medical care alone need to be addressed. A lot can happen because somebody looks different,

sounds different or does not share the same sense of humour or way of life. This is not going to change with legislation

It is a matter of changing perception through education.

cynic

05/07/2008

This is a whitch hunt! Do you remember the time when the NHS was propped up by Foreign Doctors?. Now that the EU doctors have to accomadated "foreign doctors" are targeted as being excessively brought up before the GMC.Can you be more specific where these foreign doctors ORIGINATE from rather than make a BLANKET STATEMENT that more foreign doctors are hauled up before the GMC. Foreign doctors provide the NHS with a VALUABLE service. You do not have to look far- Lord Darzi Minister of Health, Professor Arulkumaran current President elect of the Royal College of Obsterticians & gynaecologists are "FOREIGN DOCTORS". SO, if you say foreign doctors are incompetent how come these doctor hold such estemed position in the UK?

Tatiana Nikolova

13/07/2008

May be regarded as an easy target?!

Michael Brookman

30/07/2008

Is this universal? Is it true for countries such as Australia which also have a lot of foreign doctors? Do UK trained doctors in Australia have more complaints against them, than the Australian trained?

Incidentally the report concerns those trained outside UK. Do white non-UKers have the same rate as non-white non-UKers? Do those who do not have English as their first language have a greater rate of complaint?

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