The BMA has warned that recent changes to the immigration system may cause a shortage of doctors within the NHS.
The changes restrict international medical students, who are studying in the UK, from continuing with their medical training beyond the two-year postgraduate Foundation Programme.
BMA chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum has written to Health Secretary Alan Johnson to request that he intervenes to ensure the changes are prospective and do not impact upon either recent graduates of UK medical schools or existing international medical students who began their studies prior to the 31 March 2009.
The Home Office changed the academic requirement for the Tier 1 immigration category on 31 March, so that doctors now require a minimum of a Master’s degree to be accepted on it. A medical degree is classified as a Bachelor's degree and, as a result, many medical students and junior doctors who have been studying in the UK for up to seven years could be lost to the NHS.
Dr Meldrum wrote: “These individuals have been included in workforce planning statistics and restricting their ability to progress with their postgraduate medical training contradicts the Government’s previously stated aim of maximising training opportunities for UK-trained doctors.
“The full implementation of the European Working Time Directive and its impact on junior doctors’ training hours, coupled with a situation in which a proportion of prospective trainees can no longer continue with their training due to ever-tightening immigration rules, is likely to exacerbate rota gaps, putting patient safety at greater risk."