Overseas doctors 'pressuring UK jobs'
21/09/2007(15:07)
Medical unemployment among UK graduates has been blamed on the government's immigration policy, it is reported.
Experts writing in the British Medical Journal have claimed that a large influx of skilled overseas doctors has brought increased pressure for jobs in the medical profession among UK graduates.
The article also argues that flaws in the government's computerised Medical Training Application Service this year have contributed to the problem.
A large number of overseas doctors were employed by the NHS in the 1990s because of a shortfall in graduates from UK medical schools, but the number of qualified doctors is set to increase by 40 per cent by 2010.
Professor Graham Winyard, a retired postgraduate medical dean, comments in the article on a crisis in NHS recruitment with a "large surplus" of applicants for limited training places.
"The implications of making medicine a career in which, after seven years of training and thousands of pounds of debt, graduates face a serious risk of permanent exclusion are enormous," he added.
Meanwhile, British Medical Association head Dr Vivienne Nathanson has welcomed the government's announcement that an appointed taskforce will review the issue of presumed consent for organ donation.
Click here for medical jobs at JobServe