Overseas doctors on an England-wide trainee scheme are being paid less than trainees employed by trusts and face reduced benefits, finds Madlen Davies
English hospital trusts have been accused of using doctors from overseas as “cheap labour” as part of fellowship schemes in which they can be paid less than doctors employed by trusts and sent home if they become pregnant, The BMJ has found.
Foreign doctors come to English hospital trusts as “fellows” as part of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges’ medical training initiative (MTI) scheme.1 They work for two years in the NHS to gain experience that they will take back to their home countries afterwards. A proportion of fellows are sponsored, for example by their home country, and others are employed directly by an NHS trust.
In some NHS trusts fellows receive the same pay and benefits as employed doctors, but University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust have a specific agreement with the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP), which means that, The BMJ has found, fellows can be paid less than trainees employed by the trusts and have fewer benefits. An employment lawyer, doctors, and the fellows themselves have voiced concerns about the pay and other conditions under this scheme, which they say can be exploitative.
The CPSP has said that it will review and rewrite some of its guidelines after The BMJ contacted it about the arrangement, but says that the scheme, which has seen more than 1000 Pakistani fellows being trained in the UK, has improved healthcare in Pakistan. “Since the scheme, the mortality rates for pregnant women in Pakistan have decreased, and there’s been an improvement in medical oncology care and paediatric care, which are demonstrable in the data,” said …