Foreign doctors must speak English...

I'd quite like the carers in Mum's home to be comprehensible both for me and, more importantly, for her.

And indeed those who work with the under 5s

Quite simple. About time!!! (I they are 'allowed' to)..

Watch this space for some body or another to say it will not be legal.

perfectly legal pogs as long as the job specification says something like:
Must have excellent spoken English and good communication skills.

Movedalot I think it is a huge generalisation to say you understand allMidlands lingo. I sat on a Youth Offender Panel once when a teenager spoke in broad 'Shepshed' and I defy anyone to understand that!

kitty

I did teach with a swedish teacher once in the East End of London. She was amazed that the children " don't speak English".

I think dialect, accent,slang must be a problem for some foreign health staff. But if they do not speak English there are problems, as a patient often has to ask some complex questions about treatment.

It is funny to be ignored again - I totally agree that doctors and 'key' staff should speak the local language. But it is weird that anglo-saxons often think that it is perfectly normal for everyone to speak English, abroad, be they doctors, dentists, plumbers and shop-keepers

'Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?' (My Fair Lady)

granjura I, for one, was not ignoring what you said about British and American doctors, but I registered your point and didn't feel I had anything to add. I suppose as English is such a widely spoken language, combined with the nation's insular attitude, it's a tiresome inevitability. However, I think it will change as the global power base gradually shifts both east and south.

absent, I am not upset about being ignored- just find it funny. Just like the expats who decide to leave the UK because they are fed up with the immigrants who do not learn the language and live parallel lives - and then do just that as expats - but feel it is ok because they are Anglo-Saxons and consider the A/S culture and language to be the world 'norm'.

granjura I know when I have been in certain places in Spain popular with expats and seen rows of English 'pubs' & clubs advertising trad full English breakfasts/fish & chips etc etc I suspect these are the haunts of people who have left England because 'the immigrants' have 'taken over' their area!

My niece worked in the Costa del Sol as a summer job once. She was hoping to practice her Spanish Came back convinced that the whole Spanish nation were losing their native language.
In Australia as well my son gets asked if he left the UK "because of the immigrants".

One of the reasons, and a subsidiary one, why we changed our aunt's care home was because all the staff were recently arrived Filipinas, all of a similar age. These ladies were excellent nurses and spoke excellent English but I was concerned that she was in a home where the culture of the staff was completely different to that of the residents, they wouldn't know the names of old shops, television programmes or home celebrations or understand the background and personal history of residents, essential when the residents have dementia. However the main reason for the move was cost. She had been an emergency admission after catastrophe struck at home and it was the nearest home with an immediately available bed.

She is now in a home where the staff are from a range of ages nationalities. Whatever reference she makes, usually some member of staff understands what she is talking about. The home has a large library of DVDs of programmes like Morecambe and Wise and staff will sit and watch with residents and reminisce about the resident's past, which was often there childhood.