A letter from two doctors in the South African Medical Journal has accused the UK of targeting healthcare workers from less economically developed countries through its Visa rules.
Under the immigration system, many healthcare roles- such as doctors, nurses, and radiographers- are on the UK’s Shortage Occupation List (SOL). This means that people in these roles have less stringent immigration requirements, such as a cut-down visa application fee and help to relocate to the UK. These measures are seen by the two doctors as encouraging healthcare workers from poor countries to relocate to the United Kingdom. They see this approach as ‘morally questionable’ and ‘insensitive’.
High numbers of overseas doctors
The letter was written by Professor Johannes Fagan (University of Cape Town), and Professor Mahmood Bhutta (Royal Sussex County Hospital). They say: “The UK has one of the highest numbers of overseas-qualified doctors in its workforce, yet continues to encourage overseas health workers to relocate.”
Official statistics show that around 170,000 of the 1.28 million staff members in the NHS originate from overseas, around 14 percent of the entire workforce. 67,000 of these are from the EU, and 64,000 from Asia.
UK refutes accusations
The UK department of health vehemently denies the accusations. It said: “The medical profession is a mobile occupation and we are aware that doctors from low-income or lower-middle-income countries choose to migrate to the UK to work in the NHS of their own accord. We will review and update our Code of Practice to list countries we will not actively recruit from so we can protect weaker health systems.”
Immigration Solicitors Rochdale, Manchester and Oldham
If you have any queries on the matters raised in this article and need the help of Rochdale immigration solicitors, Oldham immigration solicitors and Manchester Immigration solicitors then please contact us on 0161 660 6050 and Scarsdale Oldham Solicitors, Scarsdale Manchester Solicitors and Scarsdale Rochdale Solicitors will be happy to help.
