Foreign doctor law must be changed, says GMC head

11 Mar 10
The chief executive of the General Medical Council has called on the government to change the law to enable better oversight of foreign doctors practising in the UK
By David Williams

12 March 2010

The chief executive of the General Medical Council has called on the government to change the law to enable better oversight of foreign doctors practising in the UK.

Niall Dickson told MPs yesterday that the 1983 Medical Act had left a ‘gaping hole’ in the regulation of GPs.

Giving evidence to the Commons health select committee, Dickson said that the system must be tightened following the death of David Gray from an overdose of diamorphine given by a German locum GP with a poor grasp of English.

‘Patient safety trumps free movement of labour,’ he said.

Dickson said the GMC, which regulates doctors, could assess the clinical competence of doctors from non-European Union countries working in this country, and could give assurances about doctors qualifying in the UK. But the council was not allowed to assess doctors from EU countries.

He said an EU directive prevents the GMC from testing whether EU doctors are fit to practise, while the 1983 Act stops them from assessing whether their English skills are of a high-enough standard to enable them to practise in the NHS.

This was in contrast to the system in France, he said, where regulators could assess whether a foreign doctor’s language skills were good enough for them to practise.

Steve Field, chair of the Royal College of GPs, supported the GMC, adding: ‘This should be done urgently, irrespective of the election.’

But he added that the system as it stands does allow primary care trusts and employers of out-of-hours GPs enough freedom to be able to check that doctors are competent and have the necessary language skills.

‘What’s embarrassing is that PCTs haven’t taken it seriously enough,’ he said.

Health minister Mike O’Brien told the committee that he wanted to deal with the issue as quickly as possible, but feared that a change in the law would be too time-consuming.

He also underlined the obligation placed on PCTs to guarantee the clinical competence and language skills of out-of-hours GPs they are responsible for as commissioners.

‘PCTs should have been looking at language skills,’ he said. ‘If they weren’t they were in breach of the law.’

David Gray died in 2008 from a massive overdose of diamorphine administered by Dr Daniel Ubani, a qualified plastic surgeon working as an out-of-hours GP in Cambridgeshire, an inquest found last month.

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