A Discriminating View of the Doctors' Staffing Crisis in the NHS

We are going through extraordinary times for the NHS, especially so for doctors. From my perspective, this reflects the effect of not getting it right for everyone from the beginning.

The NHS as a care delivery model is fantastic. Tax funded, free at the point of care delivery, delivered at more or less the same standard across the country. It is so special, no doubt about the model/pathway.

The issue comes when it comes to staffing that delivery model. There was simply no staff at any time to deliver this model. So quite simply, as was always done in British history, the UK looked abroad for resources (the detriment to other countries by this policy is till today ignored by the UK). For healthcare the crucial frontline resource - the doctors were simply imported, poached, stolen (you can choose whichever word you want depending on the perspective) from abroad. India being a country which has medical education delivered in English following a British system of medicine was a natural target. For ages, even till today many IMGs end up as GPs in inner city and deprived areas. But it is the hospital medical hierarchy where the glaring disparity hits you.

There was always a surplus of registrar and senior registrar posts compared to the consultant posts (there was a permanent pyramid). Now that may be a problem in itself leaving people without opportunities. What happened from the mid 1970s onward, the demographics of the pyramid shifted. In the registrar and senior registrar grades there were mixed ethnicity with plenty of IMGs but very few of the IMGs went on to become consultants. The locals were in line for progression to a consultant post barring unforeseen circumstances and the IMGs were to remain permanently as registrars and senior registrars barring unforeseen circumstances, till they retired or died. These were later called staff grades and associate specialists. Name change and plenty of warm talk but the intention and roles remained the same. 


In the late 1980s and early 1990s I have heard numerous that local graduates holding registrar and senior registrar posts stated openly, loudly and clearly that they will put up with difficult conditions and low pay because it is only for a relatively short time before they became consultants. Meaning, that locals will progress on to higher pay and the IMGs will remain on the lower pay. This suited a brilliant care delivery model to be delivered at a low cost using a rubbish discriminatory unjust medical staffing model.


Of course, this strategy would have worked except that more consultants were needed and there were not enough local candidates. By late 1990s early 2000s the system woke up to this and created more medical school places and in my view with the hope that this local - IMG differential would continue. Where it went wrong primarily is that they underestimated the impact of women entering medical school, like most men, most women are excellent doctors but firstly they also want a good lifestyle (in contrast to men who in my view were often married to their careers) and more importantly physiology demands that many women choose to have children. So workforce planning went for a six; more IMGs were needed and the flood gates were opened in the early and mid 2000s. 


You see, now, suddenly, the pay for doctors is thought of as high, suddenly evening and weekends are no longer want to be considered as premium pay time. When medicine was overwhelmingly a white, male profession with IMG men manning the lower ranks these were not issues, doctors pay was relatively high compatible with their education and contribution, weekends were precious. The demographics change to equal number of women and a large number of IMGs and the values change.

The next wrong calculation comes from the fact if UK thinks they can import their way out of this mess. I don't know about other countries but many Indian young doctors are very wary of coming to UK; the training opportunities have increased in India, the economic opportunities have increased in India and lifestyle is improving in India - the exchange rate alone is no longer attractive.

To me it seems that the establishment does not want medicine to be an elite profession as it was when it was white male dominated. This makes it distinctively unattractive. There was always discrimination, there still is; the difference now is that there is FOI, there is corporate social responsibility and transparency. In the past we knew IMGs failed exams but we did not know the numbers, we always accepted that we did not reach the necessary standard, we were expected not to reach the standard, we were brought up being told that we could not reach the standard. None of that bullshit anymore. We know the numbers which are spread immediately all around the world by email, whatsapp, fb and twitter. We are asking questions; does the Indian IMG paeds reg trained in UK and taking the exam in UK have a higher failure rate in the UK version of MRCPaed than the Indian paed trainee who takes the exam in India never having worked a day here? Does the MRCGP International AKT MCQ have a longer time to answer their question than MRCGP UK which puts IMGs at risk of failing a 'purely knowledge exam'? We suspect an adverse use of linguistic bias. We know that Scottish, Irish etc need a grade c in English equivalent to IELTS 6.5 but IMGs need an English standard much higher, yet found fault with their language. We know the students in England do not need English A levels to get into med school. The standard for IELTS for IMGs was not set by administering to a group of local FY2s, it was actually set by an equivalent of a large focus group sitting around a table and deciding what was an acceptable standard; what a marvelous way of standard setting (accompanied by truck loads of stats on why that kind of standard setting was valid, the whole lot I found dubious, okay, to put it politely, it was very highly subjective)

The senior doctors including senior IMG doctors seem to have a distinct mentality that is not quite in sync with the younger doctors and their aspirations. The true cost of discrimination against women, discrimination against IMGs is now biting back.

A fabulous care delivery model designed six decades ago by the local population for the local population in UK did not consider the career prospects of IMGs and did not care that women were not part of the game for a long time are now completely flummoxed when IMGs are waking up and women are demanding a different kind of atmosphere. 


I wait to see if the lessons from past atrocities will be learned, I wait to see if because of the change in demographics medicine will be deliberately made into a lesser profession. I am not optimistic about the people becoming just. Why am I not optimistic? Let us look at the current routes into UK for IMGs - the MTI and the PLAB.


The whole MTI premise is based on getting people into UK to fill in rotas. It would be very difficult to provide any proper training in two or three years; especially when MTI doctors are not deanery numbered trainees for whom there is still to some extent funding for training. When I look around, I find that most new entrants into UK are in rota fodder posts and not in any proper training posts. I am not sure if there are large number of MTI doctors who are undergoing specialised training  (say for instance in pancreatic transplants), I suspect most of them are at SHO and junior registrar levels.

Let us say that a doctor goes back to India after MTI and applies for a job in a corporate hospital in competition with a CCT holder - who will get the job? Let us say an MTI completed doctor applies for a job anywhere else in the world (middle east, australia, etc) what kind of a job will (s)he get on the basis of MTI? Has anyone asked these questions? My personal feeling is that in most of the cases a typical MTI doctor after the completion of the time and leaves UK as per the rules is unlikely to be a strong candidate for any job anywhere in the world (I am sure there will be exceptions to this assumption).


So what is the use of MTI posts? 


The next is PLAB route doctors who more often than not spend years in a variety of non-training posts. My advice to young doctors who come to UK after PLAB process is 'take a formal training post or do not take a post at all in the UK'.


If still doctors from India want to come to UK via MTI or accept a non-training post via PLAB then the only logical reason for that would be to use UK as a temporary staging post to analyse and access opportunities in the rest of the world eg prep for USMLE etc.

UK should stop looking at IMGs as rota fodder. The system should change to provide every doctor who enters UK only formal training posts with the intention of making them a consultant or a GP; there may be some who eventually choose not to practice as a consultant and take up a senior non-consultant post, that would be a matter of personal choice and not a systematic denial of opportunity. This means at junior levels there are only training posts. Well, will this ever happen, I wish it would but I am pretty certain it won't. The system is designed for and habituated to exploitation of the IMGs; that system is unlikely to shock itself by changing even when it faces its own existential crisis.

So unless there is a technological solution there is going to be an ugly muddle impasse in the NHS for a long time to come.

©M HEMADRI

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