Foreign doctors must speak English...

nanaej

A Kiwi colleague asked me for a pin ... 'a safety pin?' I said as I rummaged through my drawer .... 'no a pin to write with' !

nanaej It's tricky when you start considering pronunciation, dialect and accents. People don't have to come from as far afield as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand for confusion to reign. When I moved from London to the North-east of England three years ago, the plug for the kitchen sink was missing. I went into a department store to see if they sold them and asked if they sold sink plugs. The middle-aged assistant stared at me blankly and I repeated my request. She still had no idea what I wanted until her colleague translated my request as sink ploogs.

But I have lived in Brum and Solihull so I understand all Midlands lingo!

well my native lingo is Black Country!

Galen I have all sorts of responses in my head but would never be so rude to you!

suppose I'd better start taking lessons then!

Absolutely! I think the EU is a problem but it could be resolved if every applicant was tested for language skills regardless of where they came from. I recruited from the EU and some of them complained they should have been given more time for the tests but my attitude was that they would be working in the UK, with British colleagues and therefore had to have a good understanding of what we were doing.

This should apply to teachers in primary/infant classes too! So many SA/OZ and NZ teachers who do not have a British English pronunciation of phonics!! Vowels in particular! one, two, three, four, five, sex!

Doctors coming here to work from abroad do have to pass certain tests, one of which may be a written/spoken English test.

I know this from a short spell spent working in an employment agency that imported foreign locums; needless to say the good ones were snapped up quickly.

Am not sure that it applied to Doctors coming in from within the EU though.

About time!

Nurses too would be nice. Was talking to a medical student who said they don't all...
Re doctors, try some poorer areas of the UK gracesmum - my poor MIL has had years of not really understanding many of her doctors (and there have been a few). Like many users of health care she is just a tiny bit deaf.
Last week she was surprised to meet a consultant that talked to her pleasantly and she could understand what he was saying.

Absolutely. All the doctors we have come across of apparent European/ Asian/African origin have spoken impeccable English albeit occasionally with charming accents.

Seems an essential idea
I had a conversation about my house insurance recently with someone who hadn't got much English; the outcome was that I cancelled it and went elsewhere as we were getting absolutely nowhere. Luckily, unlike medicine it wasn't life threatening.