My Lords, I refer to my interest as a member of the GMC board for the sake of this group of amendments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I welcome the government amendments and thank the Minister for his discussions with the regulator. I listened with great interest to the comments and queries of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about the amendments. In a sense, they reflect the generic and skeletal nature of this Bill,
which means that each clause has to relate to many different professions. Frankly, I think it argues for a more detailed Bill, which would meet her issues as well as mine.
The argument that the GMC and others have put is very simple. Clause 1 currently gives power to the appropriate national authority—in the case of health regulators, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—to draft regulations to introduce a process that will require them to assess whether someone has a particular overseas qualification that is substantially the same as a UK qualification. In the case of the GMC, a person so deemed would then be eligible to practise as a doctor in the UK. That is because the GMC does not require those with UK qualifications to do anything further to demonstrate that they have the necessary knowledge and skills for registration. This could give an automatic entitlement to practise, under the current provision of Clause 1, for international medical graduates on the same basis as UK graduates. Currently, GMC has a very rigorous process for assessing whether the international medical graduate is safe and fit to practise. Without these amendments, it would be almost impossible for the GMC to manage operationally, with 10,000 international medical graduates applying for registration each year. It would be virtually impossible to assess this number of qualifications from countries as diverse as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, UAE and many others, with hundreds of different medical schools. The concern was that the Bill as drafted could force health profession regulators to accept professionals into UK practice in a way that compromised patient safety.
The Minister was sympathetic, and I am very grateful to him. However, there remains the issue of the relationship of Clause 3 to Clause 1, which we will come on to debate. In relation to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, he clearly has a point. I hope the Minister might take this away and give it further thought.
2.45 pm