Healthcare employers reminded to do careful pre-employment checks
Nearly half of all European doctors seeking work in the UK in the last year were refused a licence to practise, after failing to provide sufficient evidence of their language knowledge, the General Medical Council (GMC) has confirmed.
A total of 779 doctors from the EU – 45 per cent of all applications submitted between 25th June 2014 and 6th July 2015 – were unable to prove their English was good enough to work in the UK.
Last year, after five years of campaigning, the GMC was granted new powers to check the English language skills of licensed doctors in the UK.
Under the new rules, doctors applying to work in the UK are required to take an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) assessment, and are required to achieve an overall score of 7.5 out of 9. This score was increased last year from the overall pass score of 7.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the GMC, said: “This has been an important patient safety measure. Doctors must be able to speak English properly. The fact that we can now check on doctors coming to the UK from elsewhere in Europe is proving effective.”
According to the latest figures, only a third of the 245 doctors who applied from Italy since the new rules came in have been given a licence to practice in the UK. Four in 10 Greek doctors were successful, as were 10 of 46 doctors who applied from France. Of the 114 Polish applicants, 69 were granted a licence.
Doctors from Germany were somewhat better at proving their ability to speak, read, write or comprehend English, with 53 of 79 applicants successful.
Dickson said GMC’s greater scrutiny over doctors’ applications to work in the UK wouldn’t “absolve” employers from their duty to be vigilant.
“They must carry out thorough pre-employment checks and make sure that the doctor is qualified and competent to carry out the duties they are being given,” he said
“Medicine is an increasingly mobile profession and we must have systems in place which not only make sure that UK-trained graduates meet the required standards but that all doctors practising here have been examined and evaluated to the same high level,” he added.
European doctors can provide evidence of their language skills in a number of ways, including with an IELTS certificate meeting the GMC’s criteria; obtaining a primary medical qualification where all of the course was taught and examined solely in English, or by receiving an offer of employment from a UK healthcare organisation where the employer has provided evidence to satisfy language requirements have been met.
Dickson said the GMC was looking to develop a licensing assessment for all medical practitioners applying to work in the UK.
“We believe it would be fairer and more reassuring for the public for there to be a standard for entry to the register that everyone can rely on,” he said.
Tighter checks on foreign doctors’ language skills were introduced following the death of David Gray in Cambridgeshire in 2008. Gray died after he was given 10 times the normal dose of diamorphine by a doctor who had already been refused work elsewhere in the UK because of his poor command of English.