Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA Council, has written to the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson, to request that he intervenes to ensure that the UK does not lose further doctors as a result of recent changes to the immigration system.
The changes restrict international medical students, who are studying in the UK, from continuing with their medical training beyond the two-year postgraduate Foundation Programme. On 31 March 2009, the Home Office changed the academic requirement for the Tier 1 immigration category. Doctors applying to Tier 1 now need the minimum of a Master’s degree to be accepted onto it. A medical degree is classified as a Bachelor’s degree and as a result many medical students and junior doctors who have been studying in the UK for up to seven years could be lost to the NHS. In the letter to Alan Johnson, Dr Hamish Meldrum said: “The full implementation of the European Working Time Directive and its impact on junior doctors’ training hours, coupled with a situation in which a proportion of prospective trainees can no longer continue with their training due to ever-tightening immigration rules, is likely to exacerbate rota gaps, putting patient safety at greater risk.”
