Prioritising UK-taught medics for training places ‘unfair’, says top doctor

Former president of the Royal College of GPs Baroness Gerada argued the Government reforms were “basically pulling the rug” from under those who faced losing out.

Plans that have been rushed through Parliament and are set to become law would see medical graduates from the UK and Ireland prioritised for both foundation and specialist placements, along with other specific groups.

The move comes amid stiff competition for training roles and concerns that doctors failing to secure a post are leaving the profession.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has previously highlighted the need for the NHS to end its “over-reliance on international recruitment”.

Read more: Resident doctors vote to continue industrial action for another six months over pay row

Read more: Patients to be guaranteed same-day GP appointments for urgent needs under NHS contracts shake-up

The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill forms part of the Government’s push to resolve an ongoing dispute with resident doctors in England, which has led to strike action.

Raising her “anxieties” at the third reading, Lady Gerada, an independent crossbencher who has received numerous awards for her contributions to healthcare policy and practice, said: “I believe that the Bill fundamentally challenges one of the principles that I have always held dear, which is fairness.

“It is unfair to international medical graduates, who we have entreated to come to this country for the last two decades – we have even paid for them to come – to work in hard jobs, in places where UK graduates did not want to do them. Now that we have more people than places, we are basically pulling the rug from under them.

“We are jeopardising their careers, their futures, their families and their visas.”

She added: “It is also unfair to those UK nationals who chose, again in good faith, to study overseas and now have been treated like international medical graduates, when they are not.

“Finally, it is unfair to the commitment that the Department for Education has made around transnational undergraduate and postgraduate education. This Bill, I am afraid, takes away that commitment and says that we do not really mean what we say.”

Earlier, health minister Baroness Merron said the legislation would “ensure a more sustainable and resilient medical workforce”.

She told peers: “It will ensure that we make the best use of the substantial taxpayer investment in medical training and it will give our homegrown talent a clear path to becoming the next generation of NHS doctors.”

The minister added: “We are clear that this Bill does not and cannot resolve all the workforce issues within our National Health Service.

“It sits alongside a range of action that the Government are taking to ensure that the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for people when they need it.”

Conservative shadow health minister Lord Kamall said: “We will continue to hold the Government to account on the delivery of these places over the coming years.

“As we have said previously, the Bill is not a complete solution to the problem, as the minister graciously acknowledged. We accept that it is a step forward.”

He added: “There was some debate about whether this was really emergency legislation or whether, in reality, it was simply giving the Secretary of State a bargaining chip in negotiations with the BMA (the British Medical Association).

“That may be no bad thing in itself, but the question remains of whether emergency legislation should be used to give ministers bargaining chips.”