‘Foreign docs, including Indians, 6 times more likely to banned than those trained in UK’

LONDON - Doctors who qualify from non-European countries, including India, are six times more likely to banned for putting patients in danger than those trained in the UK, a study has found.

The Daily Mail quoted the NHS-funded National Clinical Assessment Service (NCAS) study as saying that a GP is three times as likely to be suspended if they are trained in Europe rather than the UK.

The study has also revealed that GPs and hospital doctors who qualify outside Britain are twice as likely to be referred for investigation than those who graduated here, the paper said.

Among doctors who are trained in the UK, one in 270 is referred every year, compared with one in 135 for those trained outside Britain, the survey report said.

The report will reignite concerns about the use of foreign doctors in the NHS - a trend, which has been increasing in recent years. There are 35,000 overseas-trained doctors in the UK, the paper added.

The findings have come after the revelation of the case of David Gray, a pensioner who was killed after Daniel Ubani, a German GP with poor English skills, gave him ten times the normal dose of diamorphine.

Professor Alastair Scotland, director of NCAS, said that although some overseas doctors are doing excellent work, some groups among them have raised concerns.

‘Most doctors from outside the UK do excellent work for the NHS and the service depends a great deal on them. But these statistics show clearly that there is a greater likelihood of concerns being raised in some groups than others.NCAS statistics have shown consistently that place of primary qualification has a more powerful influence on referral to our services,” he added.

Welcoming the findings of the report, a spokesman for the Department of Health has said that his department would consider the findings carefully.

However, Paul Nuttall, the deputy leader of the UK Independence Party, said that the EU and its rules are “bad for our health,” adding: “The UK cannot demand greater care on EU doctors but these figures highlight that that is where the problem most lies.” (ANI)