In a four-to-one majority verdict, the Lords Committee dismissed the government’s appeal against a court order in October last year in favour of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) which had challenged an April 2006 “guideline” to hospital trusts to employ non-EU medicos only if no candidate from EU is available.

The Lords Committee also awarded costs to BAPIO, that spearheaded the legal battle against government’s attempt to retrospectively introduce regulations to restrict non-EU doctors already in the UK from applying for training posts in the state-aided National Health Service.

Soon after the judgment was delivered in the Lords Chamber of the House of Lords, an elated Dr Ramesh Mehta, President of the BAPIO said: “This is a  landmark victory. We expected the Health Department would now treat non-EU overseas doctors fairly and equally on the basis of merit in the case of recruitment to the NHS.”
An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 international medical graduates, a majority of them from India, would benefit from the judgment.

Thousands of international doctors have already left the UK after suffering a traumatic experience. At least one doctor, from Pakistan, took his life.

“The House of Lords has vindicated our position that the government had acted in haste and prematurely without thinking about the damaging consequences for thousands of international medical graduates,” Mehta said.

“Many careers have already been destroyed. However this ruling will give hope of fair treatment to the doctors who are still in the UK,” said BAPIO vice chair Satheesh Mathew.