UK now recruiting MDs in Germany

The UK Department of Health is preparing to recruit more physicians abroad and to send more patients out of the country for treatment.

The department held its first overseas job fair in Germany this past spring, when some 17 National Health Service (NHS) trusts set up recruiting booths. Officials estimate that Germany has a surplus of more than 6000 medical consultants.

However, some German doctors who are already working for the NHS say they have encountered hostility from their British colleagues. Many British doctors working for the NHS also see private patients, and some critics have charged that physicians objecting to the arrival of foreign doctors are simply trying to protect their private practices.

The UK has also opened the way for hospitals to reduce waiting times for surgery by contracting teams of foreign doctors and nurses to perform operations in underused NHS facilities.

One company, German Medicine Net, has offered to operate on 500 000 NHS patients awaiting elective procedures that do not require overnight hospital stays for Can$1.5 billion. This includes the cost of setting up mobile surgery centres.

The British Medical Association (BMA) says it supports the use of private and foreign health care providers “in the short to medium term” to cut waiting lists, but it also wants to see more physicians trained in the UK.

The NHS has already sent a small number of patients to France and other European Union countries for treatment. A national opinion poll sponsored by the BMA found that 42% of Britons would be willing to travel abroad for treatment and another 27% would be prepared to travel anywhere within the UK.

The chair of the BMA council, Dr. Ian Bogle, warned that surgical treatment abroad makes the continuity of postoperative care difficult. — Mary Helen Spooner, West Sussex, UK