By Prasun Sonwalkar
London(IANS) : A ruling by the Court of Appeal treating international doctors on par with British and European Union doctors for purposes of employment has dealt a blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s populist promise of “British jobs for British workers”.
The ruling spread a wave of Diwali cheer among thousands of Indian doctors in Britain whose future depended on the case, which revolved around a challenge to a health ministry guidance that would have compelled employers to prioritise hiring of medical graduates from Britain and Europe over those from other regions.
However, in a unanimous ruling Friday, three judges of the Appeals Court called the ministry guidance “illegal”, sparking instant celebrations among campaigners of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO).
The ruling is expected to benefit some 10-15,000 doctors of South Asian origin who are living in Britain and will have immediate implications as the next round of hiring by the National Health Service (NHS) is expected in January and February 2008.
The judgement is also being seen as the first legal rebuff to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s populist promise of “British jobs for British workers”.
Soon after he made the promise during a September party conference season, Brown’s assurance was shown to be unrealistic by the opposition Conservative party on the ground that it went against European Union law. This week, Labour MP Keith Vaz also described Brown’s slogan as “employment apartheid” and said it risked fuelling racism.
Amidst the cheer over the ruling, Indian doctors are also sounding a note of caution. The ruling removes a restriction to employment but they believe that doctors from India wishing to move to Britain should continue to think several times before doing so for several reasons.
For one, the pool of employable people has grown exponentially due to higher numbers of overseas doctors clearing the pre-employment tests.
Secondly, more numbers of British medical graduates are turning out every year due to higher investment in enlarging student capacity.
Thirdly, doctors from the enlarged European Union are also part of the thousands who apply to the NHS.
A senior Indian doctor told IANS: “Only the best and brightest of Indian doctors have a good chance of finding employment in the NHS. The situation is no longer as easy as it was before 1985 or even in the 1990s.”
During the recent round of recruitment under the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS), several Indian doctors gained employment, while many British doctors who were unsuccessful left the country for jobs in Australia, Canada and the US. The inability of British doctors to find jobs in the NHS led to a public uproar.
The ruling that overseas doctors should be treated at par with British colleagues for employment is likely to make it more difficult for British graduates to gain training jobs. The Department of Health, which had drawn up proposals to restrict employment opportunities to overseas doctors, called the ruling “disappointing”.
A department spokesperson said: “It means we no longer have the option of issuing the guidance for 2008 on which we were consulting that prioritises UK medical school graduates for specialty training posts.
“We face the prospect of a large number of applicants competing for places. Doctors from outside Europe have made and continue to make a huge contribution to the NHS. The issue is not, and never has been, whether they can continue to work as NHS doctors – which they can – but whether the taxpayer should be investing in training them instead of UK medical graduates.”
The British Medical Association (BMA), which consistently supported BAIPO’s stand on the restrictions on over seas doctors, hailed Friday’s ruling.
Ram Moorthy, chairman of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee, said: “The BMA believes this is the right decision. Doctors on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) came to the UK in the honest expectation of careers in the NHS. The BMA has never wavered from the view that they should be able to compete for training posts alongside their UK colleagues.”