Newly trained doctors-you need to know this

Requirements!!!!!!!!

I thought all incoming doctors to the UK had to satisfy English language requreiments? Or are they utter bollocks?

Not only foreign doctors who harm patients - remember Shipman , Bramhall , Wakefield. Also nursing staff - Allitt etc al. All who harm patients will experience consequences (hopefully)

My son and DiL are "resident"doctors (previously called junior Drs) so I've seen all this over the last few years. They are treated appallingly within the NHS and I can understand precisely why they have all been striking. It seems to me, generally, the delivery of clinical services is excellent. In almost every other area (admin, structure, back-office systems etc) in the NHS is a complete shambles. However, it has taken 14-15 years of previous Governments to get it to this position and I don't envy Wes Streeting one bit, but at least he seems to be trying to make some changes. The whole "physician associate" thing has not helped either and simply undermined the position of newly qualified doctors imo.

I disagree about risk assessment, compared to other sectors they are very good.

To me its about setting targets and acutally understanding how to actualise them.

Its almost a victim of success... because its such a political football everyone is way to scared to touch it. So they make promises without thinking about whether that is actually valuable for the population.

It hasn't.

People stated concerns around language barriers and cultural differences that can compromise the quality of care an individual receives.

Why are such things always brushed aside as racism?

Can we dump the straw man you have set up there?

Many, many foreign born doctors and nurses are excellent and necessary.

Some, however, have very poor English and cannot communicate safely with patients. If you have never seen this, you are very fortunate, or very unobservant.

Some British born doctors are also poor communicators, and terrible at their jobs. That does not mean that the risk factor of not having English as a first language should be ignored.

In general, people working in the NHS are, in my extensive professional experience, absolutely useless at making risk assessments.

I agree... people only see what they chose to see.

If it wasn't for all the foreign staff that the NHS relies on, it would have crumbled years ago.

The NHS is fucked because a complex reasons including aging population with much higher needs than 30 years ago.

Can we dump the “all foreign doctors/nurses are shit and can’t speak English” line. It’s highly offensive. I’ve worked in the NHS for 40 years across 20 different trusts and met and worked with colleagues from all over the world I’ve met a small minority of crap doctors/nurses from every country including those who were white English and trained in the UK. I’ve also met amazing dedicated caring doctors/nurses who didn’t train in the UK and were definitely not white English.
With regard to language problems 30-40 years ago I did work with doctors (in particular) who were difficult to understand, the worst one I met was Italian but this is very rare these days.
Of course we should be ensuring the doctors and nurses we train are able to stay here on qualifying it’s an absolute disgrace that they can’t. I now work in a small rural trust we had 80 student nurses qualify and there were only 20 jobs there were no jobs in MH or midwifery.

I currently have an elderly relative in hospital and I am shocked at the poor standard of English of 90% of the staff.
We can’t actually find out what is wrong with her as no one can explain.

Exactly this and not just with doctors but across all levels of care. It’s the most vulnerable most at risk and yes is a scandal waiting to happen.

when pregnant with ds 32 years ago the Chinese seeming doctor spoke to me about an issue i had - i could not understand a word he said.
this is not new

This happened to me in 2005 after I graduated... the story isn't new. The we were hit with the 2008 recession and I did a MSc. in Physiotherapy and even after that I worked as a Physio assistant/Casual Bank for 18 months as there were no permenant jobs. My friend who was a doctor and my friend who did law all had similar experiences.

The fact is going to university doesn't guarantee you a job in any field. It depends on experience and who you know- when you are on your placements you have to really work those contacts.

I would advise anyone doing their A-levels to not bother applying until they are at least 21 with a plan on how they are going to do it without a loan. When I went we had subsidised fees. but with full fees and a huge increase in the number of people with degrees it doesn't mean anything.

People who have just graduated I would advise they get as much experience as possible relevant to their field in a causal postion as this is incredibly valuable for contacts and early notice on when jobs maybe available.

I've had a few terrifying encounters with foreign doctors.

I'm not a racist, it feels like I have to say that. A fantastic consultant from India saved my life during my c-section in 2010. But she spoke perfect English and I never once felt she was anything other than professional and competent.

Over the last three years, due to a lot of family ill health, I've had the misfortune to witness doctors who should not be practicing. There were clear language barriers, two gave dangerous advice (and my complaints were ignored despite one hospital doctor advising a treatment that would have resulted in death due to a very clearly communicated severe allergy), and sadly one seemed to just dismiss female patients as nothing (though I concede that may have not been just cultural, but good old fashioned misogyny.)

This is a scandal just waiting to explode.

Victims of DEI targets..

Absolutely hear this, my partner works for an academic charity, so I am somewhat aware of the HE crisis.

It doesn't take away from the fact that this is why resident doctors are angry and wanting to strike, it's not an either/or situation.

It is not racist to suggest that mis-communication between doctor and patient presents a significant risk to patient safety.

If those doctors speak idiomatic English and are fully aware of UK standards of medical practice there’s obviously no problem.

Neither is it in disciplines beyond medicine. My son, first at Oxford, Prize for an MSc at LSE, PhD at Cambridge swiftly converted to a 4* Monograph, has had to get a job overseas for the opportunity to bid successfully in his field. HE is being decimated across the Board, but other disciplines just don't whinge as well.

The junior dr's who are striking over money are, I doubt, doing it for compromised F2s.

From what I understand there has been a surge in retirements which means far fewer consultants available to train junior staff. The bottleneck is the training. So you simultaneously have a shortage of senior doctors and an excess of junior doctors. The surge in retirements was caused by capping the pension pot and the increase was to deal with this issue.

No you are wrong . Doctors are still training until they become a consultant/ GP or associate specialist/ SAS. Registrars or Locally employed ‘middle grade doctor’ / specialty doctors which all mean the same thing ARE trainees. Core training posts ( after foundation training ) is where the worst bottle neck is )

Plenty of these posts are filled by doctors who are not UK resident and did not go to UK medical school or UK foundation training . This is because of the level playing field in applications. A doctor from overseas who has 5 years of experience might compete against a UK trainee who has done 2 years of foundation training for a core training post and get the job as more qualified.

The biggest issue is that there are not nearly enough core training posts for the UK foundation doctors coming though let alone doctors from around the world .

Because we need them. It’s nuts

Why are they allowing so many people to train as doctors if there aren’t enough jobs?

Ah I thought they had made it tricky to get back on but I’ve just looked and it seems straightforward.

Have British born doctors never caused harm? Or it only the forrins?

Yep! It's been like this for some time unfortunately, ones that are in the NHS struggle to progress due to lack of jobs and end up staying at whatever point they are at for ages. Same with nurses, we train them yet there is very minimal jobs available