Official views towards non-UK Medical Professionals not mirrored by Public

Looking at all the hurdles medical professionals are expected to jump in order to gain the right to practice in the UK, you may be led to think that British people collectively take a dim view towards foreign doctors and nurses. In fact, this is far from the truth, because most of the negativity is dreamed up by the media (who are keen to sell sensational stories) and government officials who need to be “seen doing something”.

This kind of petty bureaucracy is not unique to the UK. You will find it in many countries, but in the UK the media tends to stir up so much negativity that the government is compelled to react. Usually the reaction comes in the form of tightening regulations and requiring greater assurances.

This has to be offset against the rather obvious problem that the UK has a desperate shortage of appropriately qualified medical and dental workers, in part because many of our own have migrated to other countries, and in part because we are now training less medical professionals per capita than we had done in the past.

It must be understood that politics in the UK is a complex arena. There are some forces at work within this arena that would like to see the demise of the NHS, as they see it as burdensome upon the government. Meanwhile the vast majority of UK residents, including politicians and bureaucrats, are perfectly happy with the NHS and are feverishly hoping that it will get well soon.

The two main issues as far as the government is concerned are:

• They want to ensure that people coming to work in the UK actually will work in the UK and will not become unemployed; and
• They want to ensure that people coming to work in the UK are properly qualified, including being able to speak English to an acceptable level.

The latter issue was highlighted by two recent cases where doctors were suspended for not being proficient enough in English. In the second of the two cases, which concerns the matter of Dr Tomas Fryzlewicz being suspended, it appears he may have been unfairly treated because the reason stated in the report was that:

“When Dr Fryzlewicz spoke, you had to concentrate quite hard to understand what he was saying.” – Dr Simon Woldman, testimony at tribunal (as reported by the BBC)

This is of some concern, as it appears that the problem is not necessarily that Dr Fryzlewicz could not speak English, but that Dr Woldman could not understand him when he did so. Thus was it a problem with speaking, or with the ability of others to comprehend the speech? It must also be borne in mind that if the comprehension problem was due to something other than poor English skills, such as, for example, a speech impediment, that potentially opens up a whole new legal minefield in which everyone concerned would have to tread very carefully indeed.

Despite some political attempts to paint an image of public dissatisfaction with the NHS, the truth is that most people have no particular problem with the service they receive. If they have a complaint at all, it is more likely to be due to lack of services because even with the NHS hiring up to 3000 foreign-trained doctors per year, there are still not really enough to meet the demand.

As the illustration below shows, survey results indicate the overall public satisfaction with the NHS has actually increased significantly since 2000, and the level of overall dissatisfaction has decreased.

The implication is clearly that where there are attempts to brand the NHS as a failure, it clearly is not the doctors and nurses who work in the NHS dealing with members of the public who are the problem. If there were anyone to blame for failure, authorities would do well to look at those who operate behind the scenes, those who are responsible for administration, investigation, and policy-making. In other words, perhaps the authorities ought to just pick up a mirror.

A perfect example of the sort of bureaucratic bungle that can be very detrimental to the public interest is that of Dr Robin Roberts. The problem for Dr Roberts is that on a purely technical matter, where he had allowed a patient to use an NHS bed which the NHS administrators decided could not be billed for (and apparently this is the greatest tragedy they can imagine), and consequently labelled the good doctor a fraudster.

The whole issue affecting Dr Roberts could have been easily solved if the NHS had simply allowed him to pay for the bed used by his patient. The most appalling thing about the incident is that Dr Roberts was denied legal representation when he appeared before a panel to present his testimony regarding his conduct.

Fortunately in this matter Dr Roberts took action against the Kingston Hospital NHS Trust for unfair dismissal, and finally obtained justice. When a doctor is accused of fraud, however, especially if he has been sacked, the damage can be difficult to undo.

For patients, the obvious issue here is best explained by Dr Roberts himself:

“In the past two years, had I still been at work, I would have seen and treated about 8000 patients. Kingston Hospital did have three consultant cardiologists, but since my sacking, they only have two.”

As we have seen, satisfaction with the NHS remains high despite the glaring administrative problems, and the public are obviously pleased with the service they are receiving. Reportedly there is a 1 in 4 chance of being treated in the UK by a doctor who was born or trained overseas, and a 1 in 10 chance of the medical staff seen on a day-to-day basis having come to the UK for work, and out of the many thousands of people that are included in those statistics, it is highly unlikely that any of them will ever feature in any negative headlines as they are mostly decent hard working people.

If you are a foreign professional, don’t let negative media reports or political comments put you off coming to the UK for work. Come to the UK, the UK population are happy to receive treatment from you and Rodney Hylton-Potts can get you signed up with the GMC, regardless of what the newspapers are saying. To find out more about how we can help you, contact us on 020 7381 8111 or send an email to [email protected].

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