Indian docs failing UK medical test

Hundreds of foreign doctors,including those from India and Pakistan, are routinely failing key medical exams in the UK, a British media reported.

Hundreds of foreign doctors,including those from India and Pakistan, are routinely failing key medical exams in the UK, a British media reported.

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“Success rates are so poor that medical associations want doctors to be allowed six attempts at passing the tests rather than the current four,” 'The Mail on Sunday' reported.

The findings raise fears that trainee medics, mainly from India, Pakistan and Nigeria, are not suitably qualified to treat patients despite spending three years working for the National Health Service (NHS) before taking the exam. Until they pass the exams, which qualify them to practise independently as hospital physicians or GPs, trainees continue to see patients “under supervision” in placements at hospitals and general practitioner (GP) surgeries.

While just 9% of British doctors fail to pass the knowledge and practical exams, more than 63% of foreign doctors do not reach the standard to pass. Foreign medical associations are demanding that doctors are given two more opportunities to pass the tests amid claims that examiners may be discriminating against non-UK graduates, the report said.

“This is scandalous. If a doctor can go on failing they shouldn’t be treating patients in the NHS,” Joyce Robins, co-director of campaign group Patient Concern, said.