Page 1 of 1: Indian docs win legal battle in UK

piyushchawla · Credits: 6510 My Scrapbook

November 9, 2007

Indian doctors on HSMP visas wishing to train or work in Britain won a major court ruling in their favour on Friday.

Judges have decided that employers will now have to treat Indian doctors on par with doctors from Europe.

The court case revolved around a challenge to a health ministry guidance that would have compelled prospective employers such as hospitals to discriminate against non-European candidates, first by establishing that their skills were not found in Europe and then, if selected, to apply for work permits for them.

However, in a unanimous ruling, three judges of the Appeals Court called the ministry guidance ''illegal'', sparking instant celebrations among campaigners of the BAPIO on Diwali day.

The ruling is expected to immediately benefit some 10-15,000 doctors of South Asian origin, who are living in Britain and have been eagerly awaiting the outcome of the case.

However, the campaigners lost a second challenge - against the British government's abrupt changes to the HSMP last year. BAPIO challenged the changes on the grounds that their members were not consulted.

But Mathew said BAPIO will not take any further legal action.

The British government introduced the HSMP scheme in 2002, offering workers such as accountants, doctors and scientists the right to settle down and work in Britain. Some 49,000 people took up the offer.

But the changes ostensibly to guard against 'abuse' of the system meant that those who had already come in on HSMP visas were faced with sudden restrictions in the job market.

Their employers would have to prove that the qualifications and skills that these candidates possessed were not available among European and British candidates. And if these non-Europeans were hired, the employers would have to apply for work permits.

The next round of hiring by the state-sector National Health Service (NHS) is expected in January-February, 2008.

peddu · Credits: 135 My Scrapbook

the thing is that docs from uk started flooding to us due to the situation that prevailed for the past few months, and is this victory goin to help the new aspirants from india to get a job over there with just graduation? pls someone help me out regarding this doubt

Ram74 · Credits: 725 My Scrapbook

The court decision is for doctors halfway through their training in UK, not for fresh new aspirants. If you want to suffer and waste your life you are welcome to UK

joebloggs · Credits: 285 My Scrapbook

is HSMP the only way left for IMG doctors to train and work in the UK? , 75 points is pretty difficult to get for anyone never mind a doctor who's just passed internship/clerkship.

there is a new points sytem starting next year, will it be even tougher for IMG doctors ??

Ram74 · Credits: 725 My Scrapbook

Yes HSMP and previous NHS experience is must. The HSMP points are tougher to restrict people. Please understand them, and dont fall for them. They are encouraging people from east europe rather than from indian subcontinent.

DoctorEarnest · Credits: 8538 My Scrapbook

New UK visa policy lets Indians back

At least 5,000 Indians, disenfranchised by the Britain’s recent diktats on immigration policy that forced them to return to their homeland, are to be allowed to reenter the country, in the latest twist in the two-year-old wrangle over holders of HSMP visas.

The new visa guidelines, published on Wednesday, offer full protection to non-European holders of HSMP visas, of whom at least 30,000 are estimated to be Indian.

Amit Kapadia, director of HSMP Forum Ltd, told the British government “had finally played fair with non-European workers, but then they had no choice” .

Kapadia and the HSMP Forum Ltd, who led a long and tortuous 14-month-long campaign for equal rights, worsted the British government in early April when the high court in London ruled the immigration changes “unlawful”. The court dismissed the government’s argument that it was in the “public interest” to retrospectively apply changes to HSMP visas.

The April ruling meant that the government would be forced to grant entry, residence and/or settlement to non-European Union nationals who entered Britain under the 2002 HSMP rules.

Accordingly, the government has now decreed a fresh look at categories of non-European HSMP visa-holders who were forced to leave the UK after the new, restrictive guidelines were put in place in November 2006.

Kapadia said the government’s “new policy guidance covers migrants who were admitted under the HSMP scheme before December 5, 2006. Various categories of migrants are covered under the policy including those who were refused extension under the unlawful rules, those migrants who did not apply for extension and migrants who have either switched immigration categories to more restrictive visa regimes or those who left the UK”.

In November 2006, the British government introduced a new, retrospectivelyimposed points-based system, which effectively disenfranchised large swathes of the 49,000 non-Europeans who successfully entered the country under the scheme between January 2002 and late 2006.

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