Doctors told to leave UK after Home Office refuses to issue them visas

Exclusive: Letter to home secretary warns ‘severe understaffing’ of NHS being exacerbated by visa rules as doctors already training and working in UK denied tier 2 visas

Doctors' Association UK is warning the home secretary that doctors already in the UK who have been selected for GP training or are already working in the NHS have been told they must leave the country (PA)

Doctors working in the NHS have been told they must leave the UK after they were refused visas by the Home Office, medical professionals have warned.

The Independent spoke to one man who was forced to return to India after he quit his master’s degree to take up a place on a GP training course.

However, he was unable to obtain a certificate of sponsorship from his employer because the UK had already reached the cap on non-European Union workers.

“A training job is hard to come by. It is frustrating. Especially because it means you can’t help the industry when it’s very short of doctors,” said the man who did not wish to be named. “I know there are many doctors going through the same situation.”

He was also unable to return to his master’s, as his student visa had expired.

Another doctor who completed five years of GP training in the UK is being forced to leave the country with his two children because his tier 2 visa has run out.

This type of visa is given to skilled workers, but under government regulations only 20,700 can be granted each year.

A doctor-led lobbying group has now warned the home secretary that doctors currently working for the health service and others selected for GP training have been told they must leave the country.

A letter to Sajid Javid from the Doctors’ Association UK, seen exclusively by The Independent, says that the “severe understaffing” of the NHS is being exacerbated by visa rules.

Among the thousands of doctors who have been denied tier 2 visas are people who are already training and working in the UK, it states.

It follows the revelation last month that strict visa rules were hampering efforts to recruit thousands of doctors from overseas.

And it comes after Mr Javid pledged to take a “fresh look” at the cap on the number of foreign doctors after it emerged more than 1,500 visa applications from doctors with job offers in the UK were refused as a result of the cap on the number of tier 2 visas issued to workers from outside the European Economic Area.

“We, as doctors, are feeling the strain of working in departments, wards and general practices, which are severely understaffed. Several specialities are underfilled, and too often we find we are having do the jobs of several doctors at once,” the letter states.

“Many of us are concerned about how we can keep patients safe in the face of widespread staff shortages. It is therefore with astonishment that we greet the news that 1,500 doctors have been denied tier 2 visas to come and work in the NHS in the past four months. This is despite the fact that there are reportedly 10,000 vacant posts for doctors.

“In particular, we are concerned by hearing a number of cases affecting those wishing to train as GPs in the UK, those currently in GP training and even fully qualified GPs who have completed their training in the UK and now are being refused tier 2 visas.”

It cites examples of a number of doctors affected by the visa issue, including one woman – who has been working in the UK and the NHS for the last year and successfully applied for GP training – who had her tier 2 visa refused.

She is now unable to take up her post and it’s probable she will lose the opportunity to train.

Another GP trainee who has been working in the UK for three years was advised to return to their home country to apply for a tier 2 visa so they could continue training as a GP in this country.

Their visa has been rejected multiple times and they remain in Pakistan, miles from home.

Official figures last week revealed the NHS faces a staffing shortfall of 93,000.

A separate letter, from the Royal College of GPs, has called for Mr Javid to act rapidly in overhauling immigration rules to allow appropriately trained doctors to work as GPs in the NHS, warning that his own government’s target of attracting 5,000 more GPs by 2020 is looking “increasingly difficult to achieve”.

It follows a report from The Independent last week that an NHS doctor’s career was in jeopardy because the Home Office had rejected his application for a visa four times after telling him to leave the country and reapply for a work permit following the breakup of his marriage.

Dr Nnaemeka Chidumije has worked in the NHS in Newcastle since 2014 and was training to be a surgeon when he was told he would have to leave the country because his spousal visa had been curtailed.

He was advised he would have to go to Nigeria and reapply there for a tier 2 skilled migrant visa as a new entrant, although he had lived and worked in the UK since 2013.

The letters follow criticism of the government by the General Medical Council and the Royal College of Physicians after it was revealed that the prime minister had personally vetoed visa exemptions for 100 Indian doctors recruited by the NHS.

Around 139,000 of the 1.2 million NHS employees are foreign nationals.

In an answer to a question on the issue in the Commons on Monday, Caroline Nokes, immigration minister, said: “We keep the tier 2 cap under close review. Priority is given to doctors working in shortage specialisms, as determined by the Migration Advisory Committee, and no one has ever been refused for any of those posts.

“We have taken steps to boost training places for nurses and doctors, and a record number of undergraduates will begin medical training by 2020, with 1,500 new places.”