Newly trained doctors-you need to know this

But if an overseas doctor has a poor standard of English it comes from a country where there is widespread corruption (potentially for faking qualifications), social disdain for many disabilities and homophobia, are they really ‘more qualified’? It’s not just about the certificates.

When I read your title:
”Newly trained doctors-you need to know this”

What sprang to mind was:
The only thing a newly trained doctor needs to know is the website address of an emigration agency.

being ‘black’ or ‘Asian’ isn’t an issue if they are British and trained here. It’s an issue if they have trained overseas as not all nations have the same standards as we do, and of course language can be a problem, both written and spoken. Recruiting from overseas should be a last resort and should only be done when absolutely necessary where the vacancy cannot be filled by a suitably qualified indigenous person, it’s also ethically questionable as we are poaching qualified doctors and nurses from countries where those staff are needed. Needs top to bottom reform. I like to think Wes Streeting has this on his agenda and is able to change the current system and make it fairer for UK qualified medical staff who should be prioritised.

Both cockwomble racist Rupert Lowe and others on here have picked out Nigeria as a target - Nigeria is literally an English speaking country. 🙄

The system has failed and it is failing in numerous things not only that one you mention, and not only in the UK.
We just know the ones that affect us but there is over spending and non sense in every aspect of society/system.
YANBU.

I've worked in the part of tnr NHS that employs FY docs onto their ST (specialist training) programmes. Our contract was not for the whole of England (nevermind the UK) and we alone recruited 3000 docs each year so I'm not sure where the figure of 1000 vacancies came from? Also some of the 20,000 docs emigrating from to the UK no doubt will be consultants so not competing for training prgramme places. I dont disagree that it needs changing but I do think the numbers you've quoted aren't accurate.

Can you point out what ‘racism’ you have seen so far on this thread? Unless requiring all doctors to have genuine qualifications, a good standard of English and caring for patients is racist?

This seems to be partly why we are in this horrendous mess - the minute anyone tries to talk about it, someone pops up and tells ‘racist’ and tries to shut the conversation down.

The issue isn’t skin colour or whether they are doing their jobs properly - as a poster upthread pointed out, if their English language skills are poor, it’s a safeguarding issue. If they are trained abroad there may be an issue with qualifications or training standards. Why would you think that racist ? We need to be having these conversations without people shouting ‘racist’ and trying to shut down perfectly reasonable discussion.

I’m aware of how it works, it’s my job. You know full well that most international doctors come in at reg or above, so it’s very interesting that you are trying to both claim you are a consultant and that this isn’t the case. The key to what you’ve said is “as more qualified” - why would we not want doctors that are more qualified? What possible agenda could you have, I wonder..,.,.

No, because a lot of those fully trained overseas doctors aren’t coming in at the level they’re working at - they’re coming in at early training posts, so there is a contribution to UK grads not being able to get jobs.

For example, I’m a doctor in training. One of my colleagues is a consultant in his home country. He’s part of international research groups. He’s absolutely amazing. But he didn’t have the UK exams when he started so he came in via the general training scheme. He got his exams the first sittings he was eligible for. He’s on our consultant rota. Even so he can’t formally become a consultant until he completes training so he’ll be a registrar and using a training number until 2027. This is just a waste of everyone’s time.

How is your average UK medical graduate coming straight out of FY2 going to compete with somebody like that at interview? At interview he wasn’t competing against UK consultants, he was competing against doctors who have only just finished FY1 (as you apply in the Autumn of your FY2).

It would be much fairer if for all trainee posts you had to have two years of NHS experience equivocal to the foundation programme UK grads have to do.

Whilst there is the obvious solution to increase training posts, medical training is in such a state - who’s going to train them? Every resident I know, regardless of specialty, has had problems getting the bare minimum of training opportunities (clinics, theatre lists etc) because the rota’s are stretched so thinly that they’re being pulled to the wards, on calls etc.

Perhaps the solution is a foundation like programme for overseas medics that’s mandatory to complete ahead of entry for a UK training programme. This would help IMGs acclimatise to the NHS and hopefully increase ward cover enough that those in training might actually get to do some training.

i guess they may say the same in africa/asia, why do we train the medics

Sorry, I don't think that I was clear. The doctors applying from overseas may be much further along in their career (may have publications, passed all the postgraduate exams - by the end of F2, due to time restrictions, it's not possible to complete all specialist exams - have direct experience in a specialty, may be able to do more procedures ) than the UK doctors finishing F2, but are competing for the same training posts. Unsurprisingly this has pushed up the cut-off score for shortlisting.

I don't doubt that many overseas doctors are supremely talented. I've had nothing but good experiences with them (the nurses rather less so though). I just don't know why we bother training our own doctors at all if we're going to import nearly all of them.

Not nice to use a pejorative term.

Oh ok so if it’s not happening in London which is one of the most desirable places many would want to emigrate to and teaching hospitals to boot or in differing sectors to those you have experience of its not happening anywhere.

I first heard about this earlier this year from a dismayed mum on here reporting exactly the same thing about her own daughter, and I’ve been talking about it ever since, it’s so bloody shocking.

She said the problem started a few years ago when there was apparently a massive shortage of doctors. So the government relaxed the rules on overseas doctors working here, but this has meant that a lot of them are older and much more experienced than the graduates, so they are snapping up a lot of the jobs.

She said it had got so bad that her daughter and colleagues would often finish a training shift to find that multiple jobs had been advertised and closed, due to the huge interest, just while they were on their shift.

Her DD and her cohort all owed about £100,000 in student loans. It’s like a horrible dystopian sci-Fi..

i am often full of inspiration to our foreign doctors, they have to work particularly hard to be accepted by colleagues and patients, overcoming many hurdles to get where they are today.

It’s the same for newly qualified nurses lots have £100k debt and have gone back to the jobs they did before going to uni. The unions are involved but nothing has been done, this has been going on for the last few years.

Well, according to the OP and other posters, docs are fleeing the UK to other climes. esp ozz.

So maybe checking Australian ( or Polish) press might be a good idea?

I know Australia has had a lot of anti immigration protest etc going on.

I’m an old school lefty liberal remainer. I don’t care at all where people are from, or what they look like. I do care about poor patient care and experience as a result of mis-communication.

If you think that makes me a “gammon” (nice bit of ageism and classism there, btw) then I can’t help you.

The root cause of the NHS’s troubles is under-funding, political meddling over countless years, and specifically in this case lack of planning for and investment in post FY2 training places.

Ignoring communication problems as a risk to patient safety is ableist and ageist.

I’m an NHS AHP. This has been going on for decades now in all medical professions. The public never seem to grasp this concept as the government continually put more money into restructuring and boast about their financial input. Yet fail to increase medical staff. We now have a quarter of the buildings and a quarter of the staff, compared to 20 years ago. The buildings we have are ancient and falling down. We have multiple apprentice and assistant staff, who we then are responsible for signing off their work (on top of our own clinical load. I’m all for having these staff, but in addition to sufficient medical staff. Not instead of!

when the Tories stopped the bursaries in 20216. Number training in AHP courses plummeted. The university closest to us has now stopped teaching their course. We’re stuffed for getting new graduates now as we’re geographically challenged for recruitment and retention of staff.

People are living with multiple chronic conditions now. We have to prioritise those with the highest need and have now discharged thousands of low risk patients who no longer meet criteria for treatment. They now all risk becoming high need patients due to lack of early intervention.

The strikes are about lack of staff AND lack of jobs. The pay part is because we’re expected to do the work of 4 people now. Terms and conditions of pay have decreased the worth of everyone’s position.

There’s so much more I could say but it’s just depressing.

I too have extensive experience of the NHS in several London teaching hospital both as an inpatient with multiple surgeries and admissions, follow ups, scans, physio and referrals up to my eyeballs. I have been treated by doctors and nurses from all over the world and never once had a communication problem.

I’m a uk trained nurse, with many years clinical experience. I’ve got a masters plus several other specialist qualifications; I loved nursing and was good at my job. I took a career break a couple of years ago to nurse my terminally ill husband myself. I’d like to look to returning to nursing, but our local trusts have all frozen recruitment, now for a considerable amount of time. Posts are strictly only open to internal applicants and they just move people around and don’t backfill vacancies. Our local hospices have also frozen recruitment and are making people redundant due to increasing costs and the NI increase. The NHS paid for my training and need experienced nurses like me, especially in the area in which I worked. It’s ridiculous and such a waste of money.
In our area, nearly qualified nurses have been told not to register with the NMC yet (the nursing regulator) as they won’t be able to get a job at the moment.

This

That’s really great to hear. I’ve also encountered excellent overseas HCPs as a patient/relative, and worked with many as an NHS employee.

Does the fact your hospital has got it right mean that risks to patient safety (because of language and communication issues) don’t exist elsewhere?