Straight-A students forced to go abroad to study medicine as NHS recruits record number of foreign doctors
Written in News & Updates on Tuesday, 05 November 2013 06:16

Straight-A students are being turned away from medicine degrees at British universities due to government quotas. The news comes as the NHS recruits foreign doctors in record numbers, some of whom have ‘little or no knowledge of British culture’.

For 2013-2014, English universities were allowed to recruit just 6,071 medicine students, even though the General Medical Council registers 13,000 doctors each year and the NHS struggles to recruit enough staff.

An estimated 6,000 newly-registered doctors each year are foreigners who trained overseas. It is alleged that a proportion of these doctors have poor English and are not always familiar with drugs used in this country. Also, some these doctors – 40% of the country’s annual registration of doctors - have no knowledge and experience of British culture or its Health Service – and this in the most people-centric occupation of all.

[condensed from Daily Mail]

Above: Jagiellonian University, Cracow, a centre of excellence in Poland, one of many Central & Eastern European Universities experiencing a surge in applications from UK and Irish students this year