Is your foreign NHS doctor even qualified?

Wednesday-Thursday blog

We’ll start in Thailand. Apparently to get a government job in Thailand and to agvance in your career, you need to pass a series of exams. A scandal has recently broken out when it was revealed that perhaps hundreds of candidates had been paying between 350,000 baht (£8,300) and 850,000 baht (£20,000) to cheat in the exams. I believe the higher the position, the more the candidate or candidate’s family, had to pay. Apparently the candidates were sending their exam answers to a group of corrupt civil servants who would correct any errors and then send the answers back to the candidates to be submitted. The prime minister has threatened to sack any government employees who cheated. But given that many cheating candidates will probably come from wealthy and influential families, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Now let’s go to Nigeria. The United Kingdom’s Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has indicted 1,238 Nigerian nurses and midwives and is actively probing 717 others following a massive, widespread examination fraud scandal. The controversy centers on the Yunnik Technologies Test Centre in Ibadan, Nigeria, where data analysis by the NMC and its exam provider, Pearson VUE, uncovered “industrially scaled” anomalies. Candidates are accused of using proxy test-takers to complete mandatory Computer-Based Tests (CBT) in impossibly short timeframes—such as finishing 30-minute numeracy exams in under three minutes.

How about Pakistan? On 22 May 2020, Pakistan International Airlines Flight 8303, a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Lahore to Karachi, crashed while on approach to Jinnah International Airport Karachi, killing 97 out of the 99 people on board as well as an additional person on the ground. The aircraft, an Airbus A320 with 91 passengers and 8 crew members on board, was on an unstable approach to Jinnah International Airport, with an excessively high airspeed and altitude. The aircraft subsequently belly landed nearly half-way down the airport runway as the captain forgot to lower the landing gear. I’m not a trained pilot. But I imagine that lowering the landing gear when landing is a rather basic requirement. Then the flight crew 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, the aircraft lost airspeed and crashed into buildings. Following the ‘accident; Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) grounded roughly 150 of its 434 pilots (nearly one-third) in June 2020 after an official government investigation revealed they held “dubious” or fake licenses. Aviation authorities found these pilots had cheated on examinations or paid others to sit the tests on their behalf.

Now Britain’s NHS. From the little I understand, many of Britain’s best doctors are leaving for countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand where they can get a lot more money and a more relaxed lifestyle than Britain can offer. But this is apparently no problem as the NHS is recruiting many doctors from some of the world’s most corrupt countries. As far as I know, there has never been any investigation into how these doctors achieved their qualifications – whether honestly, or by cheating or by paying bribes. But given the morality of the countries many of these doctors come from, one might be justified in feeling concern about whether all these doctors are actually qualified.

We can perhaps get a hint as to whether there might be a more than minor problem by looking at the names of doctors given warnings by the General Medical Council (GMC)

July 2026

Chalint MOCHAMENT ALI SAOUGKI – qualified at The National Ribat University (Sudan)

June 2026:

Rhodri Sion DAVID – qualified at University of London

Yug SHANKAR – qualified at Kasturba Medical College Mangalore (India)
Rotimi Abiodun AJALA – qualified at University of Ilorin (Nigeria)

Saker SAKER – qualified at University of Damascus (Syria)

Mohammed Zeedan KHAN – qualified at The University of Warwick

You can see the whole list here:

https://www.gmc-uk.org/concerns/hearings-and-decisions/gmc-decisions#Warnings

A ‘fingerspitzengefühl‘ looking at the list of warnings suggests that well over half of doctors given GMC warnings were educated in countries not particularly known for their moral probity.

While researching this blog, I was shocked/amazed to learn that approximately 42% of licensed doctors working in the UK were trained overseas. The General Medical Council (GMC) reports that roughly 138,400 internationally qualified medical professionals now make up the workforce.

So, is there a problem with possibly unqualified Third-world ‘doctors’ employed by our NHS which is the envy of the world? Have a look at the list of GMC warnings (link above) and make up your own mind.