The training crisis facing resident doctors and international medical graduates (IMGs) has been created by successive governments, says DAUK’s SAS lead.
Dr Victoria Zaslona said it had been ‘painted as the fault of IMGs’ when the problem was a result of years of poor workforce planning.
She was speaking on national radio during a discussion on the news UK medical graduates are to be given priority access to specialty training jobs in the NHS.
Training places
The Government has announced it will prioritise UK medical graduates for training places from 2026. It is part of its efforts to end industrial action by resident doctors.
Dr Zaslona, speaking on LBC, said: “One important thing to be really clear about is that junior doctors want training places.
“They don’t want international medical graduates to not have jobs or not be given training. It’s just that they want to be able to have training places.
“This is the government’s way of painting the issue of no training places as IMGs’ fault.
Medical training
She said that poor workforce planning over many years led governments to make short-term decisions to plug rota gaps, rather than invest strategically in medical training.
This resulted in large numbers of IMGs being recruited into locally employed doctor roles. These are posts often offering little training, limited support, and insecure terms.
“They’ve made very quick decisions about trying to fill rota gaps and opened up schemes to bring IMGs to fill those gaps,” she said.
“They want to come to the UK. They’ve heard how good the training schemes are. And then IMGs have aspirations, as many doctors do.
IMGs not to blame
“This problem has been created by the government itself, and now it’s being painted as the fault of IMGs.”
Dr Zaslona warned that political rhetoric risked scapegoating IMGs and perpetuating racist narratives, rather than addressing structural failures.
Citing the GMC workforce report, she noted that doctors outside formal training schemes now make up a growing proportion of the workforce.
This, she said, was another illustration of how ‘training schemes are no longer fit for purpose’.
Fit for purpose
She said: “But no one yet is really talking about re-wiring or dismantling and rebuilding the system.”
Listen to Dr Zaslona’s interview in full on the DAUK YouTube.
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