Foreign doctors and sex assaults.

[youkiddingme]

Foreign doctors are revealed to be behind 60% of all sex assaults on patients - but NHS wants fewer of them taken to disciplinary hearings

They accounted for 23 of 38 proven incidents in the past three years, according to figures obtained by The Mail on Sunday. Allegations include indecent behaviour, sexual assault and even rape.

‘It is not acceptable that if you come from some backgrounds, you are more likely to enter the formal disciplinary process, stay in it longer and have more career-limiting outcomes. We must change this and quickly.’

it suggested not enough was being done to help BME doctors, with some feeling ‘isolated’ or as if they were ‘treated as outsiders

Now I don't for a second want to raise nasty racial prejudices, but if these are PROVEN cases - shouldn't the emphasis be on making sure ALL offenders are prosecuted, and patients thoroughly protected, not on the careers of the poor doctors, whatever their ethnicity?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7244791/Foreign-doctors-revealed-60-sex-assaults-patients.html

This is an atrocious article.

The NHS seems to be talking about their disciplinary system in general seems to be biased against BAME employees, whereas the Mail is contrasting that with the percentage of foreign-trained doctors who commit sexual assault etc.

So the Mail are conflating two different groups of NHS staff (BAME v. foreign-trained) and comparing a subgroup of disciplinary charges (proved sexual incidents) against the whole of the GMC disciplinary system. These are not equivalents and should not be used to undermine an attempt to mitigate against racism.

While the two thirds of proven sexual incidents being by foreign-trained doctors is a figure that indicates a possible need to address recruiting or practices, it isn't a reason to think that the NHS is wrong to target racism in their disciplinary system. We need to learn lessons from things like Rotherham and not let cultural differences or a fear of being accused of racism be an excuse for not tackling poor practice, but that doesn't mean giving up on the fight against racism.

Lots of BAME women work in the NHS, their disproportionate reporting to the GMC means they are less likely to be as successful in the health care industry. It marginalizes them and should not be accepted just because there are a bunch of foreign-trained men who assault women.

There is no reason we can't support BAME NHS staff and not accept sexual misconduct.

Boomboomscousin I’m not quite sure how you could prevent disproportionate reporting without disbelieving those accusing? Any examples of the kind of policy you think would help?

A relative of mine works as a consultant and has expressed the opinion that some foreign-trained doctors she has worked with have misrepresented the truth about their training and experience.

One case involved someone working as a registrar who was so hopeless, they had to fire him before he made a horrific mistake that prompted litigation. Apparently, he said he was a consultant in his home country.

Again, she also suspects some qualifications are not sound.

The reason I suspect for "foreign-trained" is that the problem also involves non-BME doctors from EU countries.

How the UK government manages to use statistics to promote the divides in the country.

23 proven cases in three years out of 95,000 doctors from black and minority ethnic backgrounds (BME) does not really sound like a statistic that is worth creating fear and loathing about the general public about.

SevenMelon encouragement to follow set of guidelines to think about what you are reporting and whether it’s something that should be reported or not could help combat unintended racism. As I recall (but can’t currently search for), there is significant research that shows when people are walked through a model process for analysing what they are reporting and focusing on the action rather than the identity of the person they’re reporting, there tends to be less bias. It would have the added benefit of encouraging the reporting of non-BAME employees who might be given the benefit of the doubt when they should not be (which is the other side of disproportionate reporting).

My previous just an example of a policy that might have impact, SevenMelon. I don’t know what the NHS is proposing. My main point is that the Daily Mail have, deliberately I suspect, mixed up two different things and used one to try and undermine the other without any real analysis. It’s just raising a fog of fear and I’m disappointed to see such a lack of critical thinking on this board over something like that. God knows we’ve seen that sort of obfuscation used enough in the trans debate to try and cloud what’s really going on.