Advice for Overseas Doctors

 
Overseas doctors wishing to pursue a career in General Practice within the UK should consider the following;
 
Residency
Training
Certification
 
Residency
 
The Department of Health announced on 7 March 2006 that from 3 April 2006 International Medical Graduates (IMGs) - who are not UK or Economic European Area nationals - wishing to work or train in the UK will need a work permit. This is a requirement. To obtain a work permit an employer must show that a genuine vacancy exists, which cannot be filled by a doctor who is a UK or EEA national.
 
It is understood that the NHS will continue to need small numbers of specialist doctors, who can bring their skills and experience to the NHS. However, increasingly the NHS will be less reliant on international medical recruitment.
 
(Source: The General Medical Council)
 
Training
 
Application to GP Specialty Training Programmes is highly competitive.  The National Recruitment Office for General Practice Training is the competent authority for recruitment to GP  training within Northern Ireland, Wales and England.  Their website holds various Frequently Asked Questions for Overseas doctors who wish to apply.
 
For Scotland, the competent authority is NHS Education for Scotland.
 
Further queries on training options should be posed to either the National Recruitment Office,  mail@gprecruitment.org.uk NHS Education for Scotland or to the College's careers enquiry service careers@rcgp.org.uk
 
Certification
 
There are two routes to GP certification within the UK.
 
The competent authority for certification of postgraduate medical training is the Postgraduate Medical Education Training Board and the applicable Articles of the PMETB order are Article 10 and Article 11.  Please carefully read through the information linked above for full detail on these Articles, however they may be summarised as follows;
 
Article 10 : For those doctors who have followed or wish to follow the proscribed UK training route.
 
Article 11:  For those doctors who feel that their past training and experience qualifies them to practice as a GP without further training, subject to the training equivalency requirements.
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