Ministers warned against using five-year IMG threshold to access training

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By Erin Dean

The government is being urged by a doctors’ group not to adopt the British Medical Association’s “discriminatory” call for international doctors to have five years of NHS experience to access training posts.

The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) said the high threshold is “disproportionate and unfair” and would disadvantage IMGs already working in the NHS, as well as British citizens who trained oversees.

BAPIO said that if five years of experience was introduced it would consider legal action against the government.

Legislation giving UK graduates priority access to training places introduced earlier this year said that international medical graduates (IMGs) with “significant experience” in the NHS should also be eligible.

The government is currently defining what counts as “significant” in the act, which was introduced to cut bottlenecks in training.

The BMA last month narrowly voted to back a call for IMGs to have five years of experience, over an alternative option of two years.