Indian Doctors Win Battle against UK Immigration Changes

PRLog (Press Release) – May 02, 2008 – This follows a two year battle with the government following the Secretary of State for Health’s guidance that gave preference to those doctors from the UK and European Union.

This amendment would essentially leave up to 8000 doctors on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) in the lurch, being unable to apply for training in NHS run hospitals. Now “They [foreign doctors] will be treated fairly and on the basis of merit,” said President of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), Dr Ramesh Mehta.

Liam Clifford, of www.globalvisas.co.in applauds this ruling calling the initial guidance “completely illegal.” “This amendment was sprung up on these doctors, giving them no time to prepare or even think. The fact that the UK benefited from foreign doctors for so many years was completely sidelined overnight.”  

For many years there was a shortage of UK born trainee or “junior” doctors. It had therefore been essential for the government to recruit doctors from abroad to fill these gaps. These doctors fell under the International Medical Graduate (IMG) visas or more recently the HSMP visa. An IMG would not require a work permit in order to work in Britain.

Those doctors with the correct qualifications however had to return home after their training or after four years. The advent of the HSMP in 2003 scheme did not require skilled immigrants to return home after a specific amount of time. It was therefore easy and encouraged for foreign doctors to come to Britain.

However in the past few years it has become clear that there is no longer a need for this international recruitment as numbers of local and EU-born doctors shot up. Following this the Department of Health urged hospitals and the like to give preference to UK and EU doctors unless a suitable candidate could not be found.

At the time of this about 30 000 doctors were working at NHS hospitals with 15 000 in training.

These guidelines have been called “illegitimate and unfair” by the House of Lords. The mere fact that these amendments were announced via minimal publicity and a casual post on a website was also seen as unjust to foreign doctors who had no time to prepare for any changes.

It was clear that this guidance aimed to reduce the ability of IMGs and junior doctors to enter and work in the UK under HSMP or any other immigration scheme. But this guidance was ruled illegal as it could not become law without an amendment of immigration rules.


Despite this success, particularly for those doctors from India, foreign doctors should get ready for stricter immigration rules coming into place. Those Indian doctors applying for posts, this year, can only apply for non-training posts. Also the implementation of the new tier system that is already in place for Indians makes the process even more difficult.