Royal College of GPs demands change to immigration rules
- Published
Immigration rules should be relaxed to make it easier to hire GPs, their professional body has said.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has written to Home Secretary Sajid Javid demanding change.
It says medics trained in the UK and needed for jobs in the country risk being forced to leave.
The Home Office said it had met its standards for processing applications to sponsor visas.
The RCGP said a "hostile environment" for illegal immigration had "put policy over common sense" and made it difficult to recruit foreign doctors from beyond Europe.
Chairwoman Helen Stokes-Lampard said: "It is clear from recent media reports that the public support the relaxing of immigration rules for people wanting to come from overseas to live in the UK to work in the NHS."
BBC Radio 4's Today Programme has spoken to doctors who risked being forced out of the UK, despite having lived in the country for almost a decade and having found jobs.
Problems arise when doctors from beyond the European Economic Area seek a visa for highly skilled migrants on completing their training. Some GP surgeries - which are typically small businesses - have struggled to complete the paperwork accurately in time for them to secure visas.
One medic, Mervin Wong from Malaysia, faced months of delays before he could start practising and feared he would be deported.
He told Today: "It seems a bit absurd that it was easier to hire a GP from a European country who had never trained, never studied in the UK than it was for me to get a job."
Another GP living in Saudi Arabia told the programme he had been accepted as a trainee in the UK, but refused entry to the country because of the cap on the annual numbers of skilled migrants.
The home secretary has previously said he will take a "fresh look" at the cap.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We remain within our published service standard for processing sponsor licence applications."
- Published27 April 2018
- Published9 May 2018
