Newshound

NHS Employers to offer jobs to non-EU doctors

Publication date:  18 Feb 2009

NHS Employers, in partnership with NHS Jobs, has launched a pilot scheme to help medical graduates from outside the European Union (EU) who are looking for training posts in the NHS. The move comes as some hospital trusts are finding it difficult to recruit doctors to some vacancies.

NHS Employers say the arrangement will make it easier for doctors from outside the EU to identify job opportunities that may attract tier 2 sponsorship to work in the United Kingdom. Such sponsorship, which replaces the previous work permit system, is available only where there have been no suitable European applicants. It will enable employing trusts to support doctors from overseas to come to work in the NHS for up to three years. Unlike some other forms of immigration status, someone who is accepted on tier 2 can be employed on a training post.

There has been a shortage of doctors after international medical graduates were excluded from NHS posts because of changes in the immigration rules in February 2008.

At the time of the announcement it was estimated that as many as 10 000 international medical graduates who might otherwise have applied to work in a training post in the UK would not have been able to do so. But the Department of Health took the decision to change the rules because it estimated that around 700 to 1100 UK doctors would otherwise not be able to secure a training place in 2009, 2010, and beyond. The House of Lords ruled in May 2008 that the department’s decision was unlawful. And the reality has proved different, with some trusts now unable to fill posts from an EU applicant.