PM speech on immigration

With reference to Mr Brown's recent speech on immigration that suggests a ban on medics from outside Europe, I am left with absolutely no doubt that the cocoon around him i.e. his advisers are completely of sync with reality. No wonder that the speech has already been correctly dismissed by most including 'migration watch' as a feeble attempt to be 'seen to be doing something'. Many trusts are already reeling in serious shortages of doctors across various grades especially Wales and Scotland. There is a fear that this may have or might lead to a drop in recruitment bars set when there was plenty of workforce around. Even in general practice, the pendulum seems to be swinging to the other side now. Some estimates suggest shortage of up to more than thousand of posts across junior grades alone. You have to be in fairyland to expect the UK qualified or EU doctors to be able to fill these posts. EWTD directives has only contributed to this shortage caused by unjust and ill thought visa changes imposed retrospectively couple of years ago coupled with MMC failures. Current point based system , which government has been boasting about , is a good system but there are some unacceptable flaws including an infamous clause where if your bank balance is less than a certain amount for even a single day, can lead to your application being refused despite being on higher than average salaries. In essence, the government policy has usually reflected contrasting intentions to the needs of NHS. Everyone has suffered as a result i.e. both NHS as well as non-EU doctors. This also leads one to question the motive behind the recruitment drives by some agencies form non-EU countries and recently rolled out Medical Training initiative. It is hard to be convinced that the only motive is filling in the gaps without any benefits for such doctors. It is also interesting to note that the group of immigrants that brings maximum economic and cultural benefits to the country and the group that can not avail any public funds including child benefits for many years, seems to be the target of the speech.
We need a concerted policy that regulates all doctors entering Britain but provides a fair deal to those who are allowed in. All they need to do is to involve doctors ie BMA, BAPIO etc to assess the ground realities and coordinate with home office.The strategy should respond to the needs of NHS and not be a knee jerk reaction to a party that does not deserve mentioning its name, winning couple of seats as public is sensible enough to make decisions and will certainly do so next year. Anyways, they trust doctors many times more than those who make policies. What an irony!

Kamal Sidhu