Foreign-Trained Doctors Behind Majority of Misconduct Cases Despite Being a Minority, Data Reveals

Foreign-trained doctors make up a minority of Britain’s doctors but account for the majority of misconduct cases. The Telegraph has the story:

Medics trained abroad accounted for 55.6% of cases where misconduct was proven last year, despite making up 42% of doctors working in the UK.

They were most likely to be sanctioned by regulators for fraud or incompetence. Others were sanctioned for having criminal convictions and sexual misconduct.

Of the 212 doctors found guilty of misconduct by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in the past year, 118 were trained overseas.

These included 28 who were struck off the General Medical Council (GMC) register; 69 whose licence to practise was suspended; nine who had specific working conditions placed on them and seven who had the restoration of their licence refused.

The most common overseas training location for those sanctioned was India (23), followed by Egypt (17).

The GMC continues to receive more fitness to practise referrals about doctors trained abroad than those in the UK, although it blames this on discrimination.

It has targets to “eliminate” disproportionate referrals against foreign-trained doctors by this year. …

In 2024, 417 complaints about non-UK-trained doctors received a full GMC investigation – or 53.9% of the total, up from 50.5% in the previous year – although the proportion of foreign-trained doctors increased year on year.

Data from the GMC, which regulates doctors in the UK, found that the percentage of foreign-born doctors had reached 42%. In contrast, the figure is 15% in Germany, while in France it is 11%.

The influx of foreign doctors to Britain, which now tops 20,000 a year, has come as British medical graduates struggle to secure training places.

Worth reading in full.