UK: Patients put at unacceptable risk by foreign doctors

German Dr  Daniel Ubani
(Does he look fucking GERMAN?)

Patients are being put at 'unacceptable risk' because the NHS provides less training for European medical staff than Boots the Chemist does for its pharmacists, peers declared last night.

Continental doctors and nurses are allowed to work without any formal NHS training in an attempt to comply with EU freedom of movement requirements, a House of Lords committee concluded. 

By contrast, Boots ensures that European pharmacists undergo a 12-week supervised induction process so they know how the British system differs from their own.

Peers also found that the NHS is being forced to accredit EU medical staff even if their training is years out of date or is well below UK standards. Some countries even refuse to tell regulators such as the General Medical Council when doctors have been struck off, citing EU data protection directives.

They say that this, coupled with language difficulties, means it is impossible to be confident that patients are receiving safe care from all European medical staff.

The highly critical report, Safety First, found:

EU nurses are cleared to work here even if they have not been on a ward for 20 years;
The role of ‘general practitioner’ varies massively abroad. In some countries patients are often seen directly by specialists;
Some midwives come from countries where gynaecologists deliver all children. Some have no idea how to monitor a foetus.

The issue was brought into focus by the case of Dr Daniel Ubani, a 'German' GP who killed 70-year-old David Gray with a tenfold overdose of diamorphine because he did not have the expertise expected of a UK family doctor.

While the GMC can impose strict tests on doctors and nurses from outside Europe, they are not allowed to do so for EU medics because it would impede freedom of movement.

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