How many foreign doctors and nurses are actually qualified?

Thursday/Friday blog

(Apologies if you’re a viewer of Simon Webb’s (IMHO) brilliant History Debunked YouTube channel where I first saw this story)

We’re constantly told that without immigration, our beloved NHS (which is the envy of the world) would collapse. But how true is this?

Pakistan’s somewhat dubious ‘pilots‘

Let’s start this blog in Pakistan.

On 22 May 2020, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Flight 8303, a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Lahore to Karachi, crashed while on approach to Jinnah International Airport, killing 97 out of the 99 people on board as well as an additional person on the ground. The aircraft, an Airbus A320-214 with 91 passengers and 8 crew members on board, was approaching the runway too fast and at too great a height. The aircraft subsequently belly landed nearly half-way down the airport runway because the captain and first officer ‘forgot’ to lower the landing gear. Ooops!

The flight crew then conducted a go-around. During the go-around, both engines started to fail due to damage sustained during the belly landing. Whilst attempting to land back on the runway, this time with the landing gear lowered, the aircraft lost airspeed and crashed into buildings. All 8 crew members and 89 out of the 91 passengers on board were killed by the impact and post-crash fire. One person who was inside the buildings died ten days after the crash due to burn injuries.

Subsequent investigations revealed that around 1 in 3 PIA pilots wasn’t actually qualified to fly passenger planes. They had got their licences due to corruption – mainly bribing examiners with generous dollops of cash.

Nigeria’s somewhat dubious ‘nurses’

Hundreds of frontline NHS staff are treating patients despite being under investigation for their part in an alleged “industrial-scale” qualifications fraud. More than 700 nurses are caught up in a potential scandal, which a former head of the Royal College of Nursing said could put NHS patients at risk.

The scam allegedly involves proxies impersonating nurses and taking a key test in Nigeria, which must be passed for them to become registered and allowed to work in the UK.

What about our beloved NHS?

So, given that so many doctors, nurses, radiologists and other healthcare workers come from some of the world’s most corrupt, cess-pit countries, where lying, cheating amd dishonesty are the national sport, how many medics trained abroad working in the NHS are actually qualified?

Of course, we don’t know the answer. But we can get a hint of whether there might be a more than minor problem with such people employed by the NHS. Here are the latest ten doctors referred to the Medical Practioners Tribunal Service:

• Dr Mohamed EL MUIAD – February 2026
• Dr Lina SIMAVICIUTE – February 2026
• Dr Isa ALALWANI – February 2026
• Dr Ramamoorthy RAGURAM – February 2026
• Dr Piotr PIERZCHNIAK – February 2026
• Dr Attiya SHEIKH – February 2026
• Dr Victor EVBUOMWAN – Jan-Feb 2026
• Dr Joseph RUGEMINTWAZA – Jan-Feb 2026
• Dr Najmiah AHMAD – Jan-Feb 2026
• Dr Sonali MUKHERJEE-BOSE – February 2026

Not too many typical British names there?

But before we start to draw any possible conclusions, here are the next 10 doctors investigated for various alleged offences:

• Dr Ian HUDSON – Jan-Feb 2026
• Dr Atif ZAMAN – January 2026
• Dr Mark ELIAS – January 2026
• Dr Mohit CHHABRA – January 2026
• Dr Ronald JAMES – January 2026
• Dr Velmurugan KUPPUSWAMY – January 2026
• Dr Saheb Peer SHABAZ KHALANDER – January 2026
• Dr Alan CAMPBELL – January 2026
• Dr Neill GARRARD – January 2026
• Dr Sekela MWAMBINGU – January 2026

This time, about 5 of the 10 doctors investigated seem to have British-sounding names. But in the next 10 investigated, only one seems to have a British-sounding name. And in the following 10, just 2 had British-sounding names.

Like’s too short for me to investigate the background and education of all the doctors investigated by the Tribunal to see whether they got their medical qualifications in Britain or in one of the world’s more regulatory-challenged, ethically-challenged, morally-challenged countries. But a quick glance at the activities of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service could give some readers pause for thought next time a doctor or nurse from one of the world’s more ‘exotic’ countries is going to treat them:

https://www.mpts-uk.org/hearings-and-decisions/tribunal-hearings-and-decisions?selected=recentTribunalDecisionsTab&recentDecisionsPage=1&currentAndUpcomingPage=1