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VSO and the Royal College of Physicians are concerned that the Government’s proposed changes to immigration laws announced today, will have a significant impact on a training initiative that increases the quality of medical healthcare in the developing world and has significant benefits for the NHS.

The two organisations warn that the highly effective two year Medical Training Initiative (MTI) that trains about 200 doctors a year from the developing world will be put at risk if the Government adopts its proposal to cut the duration of Tier 5 visas for temporary workers to just one year.

The changes will mean that MTI doctors and other workers will no longer be counted in incoming migrant figures.

VSO and the Royal College of Physicians are calling for an exemption for health workers coming to Britain as part of the MTI to ensure they can take advantage of the full two years of training.

VSO UK Head of External Affairs, Kathy Peach said:

“The MTI has minimal impact on long-term immigration numbers with all doctors carefully selected and processes put in place to ensure they return to their home countries after their training.  A full two years of medical training is needed to ensure doctors receive all the skills they need to save more lives in developing countries.

“Under the proposed changes it will be easier for an unskilled Australian bar worker to stay in the UK for two years than a skilled Sudanese Doctor who wants to come to Britain to receive medical training that saves lives, and make a contribution to providing high quality services to patients in the UK.”

“In many developing countries, such as Sri Lanka, doctors cannot receive their post university training in their own country. They must go abroad for two years to complete their qualifications. Britain has played a vital role in training doctors from countries where the shortage of skilled health professionals is leading to tens of thousands of preventable deaths each year. We are concerned that our good work in helping address needless deaths in the developing world is under threat.

“Reducing the MTI to one year will lead to doctors seeking training in other countries which do not have the safeguards in place to ensure those doctors return to their home countries, where they are needed most, once they complete their training.”
 
Sir Richard Thompson, President of the Royal College of Physicians said:

“The MTI benefits the NHS. It makes financial sense by reducing locum costs.  The MTI also helps hospitals fill rotas gaps, which has been exacerbated by the limiting effects of the European Working Time Directive and the New Deal on junior doctors’ hours of work. High quality doctors from overseas that speak excellent English make a valuable contribution to the UK health service. Just one MTI candidate can make a substantial difference to a hospital’s ability to provide the best training for junior doctors and an around the clock consultant led service for patients.”

Currently, there are 340 doctors working in 149 trusts across the UK through the MTI. Of these, 77 were sponsored by the RCP and an additional 205 physicians are due to start posts in the UK in the coming months.

Case study
Dr Tarig Mahmoud, MRCP London and former MTI trainee from Sudan said:
“Training in Sudan is very basic and not structured. At least 80 per cent of your knowledge and education comes from your own efforts, unlike the UK where you can get direct teaching and education in a structured format. Every Sudanese doctor’s main ambition is to train in the UK, and the MTI opened the gate for us. A well-trained doctor is like the sun. His knowledge will radiate out and impact everyone around him; he upgrades his own service in his country automatically.”

Dr Eluzai Hakim, consultant physician in adult medicine and rehabilitation, Isle of Wight:
“There are already safeguards in place to ensure doctors benefiting from Tier 5 visas return to their home countries after training in the United Kingdom and, we in the South Sudan, will ensure that this provision is built into the individual trainee contracts. From my point of view this is possibly the best foreign aid (in kind) which the United Kingdom can give to any developing country.”

Statistics:

• Fifty-seven countries worldwide suffer from a severe shortage of health workers. Thirty-six of these are in Africa, which has just three per cent of global health workers but bears 24 per cent of the global burden of disease .

• It is estimated that 23 per cent of doctors trained in sub-Saharan Africa are now working in OECD countries .

• In 2007, an estimated 31 per cent of NHS medical staff had qualified outside the European Economic Area

• Meagre salaries, limited opportunities for promotion or development and a general feeling of being undervalued were also recurring themes.

• Africa alone requires 800,000 health workers by 2015 and there is a critical shortage of workers in more than 50 countries.

• Thirty-six countries in Africa are confronting critical shortages, meaning they have fewer than 2.3 doctors, nurses and midwives per 1000 peoplei.

Editor's notes

VSO Media contact: Krista Eleftheriou on krista.eleftheriou@vso.org.uk, +44 (0)20 8780 7265, +44 (0)7738982122