Doctors who have been prevented from working in the NHS while they wait for asylum decisions are celebrating after the Home Office agreed to lift the ban. The changes come into force on Thursday.
The changes to the immigration rules follow a high court challenge by two specialist doctors who had the relevant qualifications to work for the NHS but were prevented from taking up work. Doctors who have a break in their practice can quickly become deskilled. Until now, the ban has remained in place despite shortages of doctors and other healthcare professionals in some parts of the NHS.
The two doctors, one a radiologist and the other a specialist in neuro-rehabilitation, challenged the permission-to-work policy for asylum seekers, which severely restricts areas in which they may be permitted to take up jobs if they have waited more than 12 months for an initial decision on their asylum claim. They could seek only jobs on the immigration salary list, which was introduced in April 2024 and did not include doctors.
The Guardian spoke to two doctors who are qualified to work in the UK but until now have not been allowed to do so, who say they will be making their applications on “day one” of the rule change.
“I previously asked the Home Office for permission to work as a doctor three times. But they refused me three times. I specialise in paediatric intensive care but until now I have been forced to do nothing,” said one.
The two doctors who brought the legal challenge were work-ready thanks to support from NHS-funded REACHE – Refugee and Asylum Seekers Centre for Healthcare Professionals Education.
The neuro-rehabilitation specialist was granted refugee status, which gives the right to work. She was able to take up a specialist post she had applied for a year earlier but had not been allowed to accept. The post had remained unfilled during that period.
The high court hearing was adjourned last December after the home secretary agreed to carry out an urgent review. She has amended the policy so that those who have waited 12 months or more for an initial asylum decision will now be allowed to work in several graduate-level NHS jobs, including as doctors and nurses.
The second doctor who can now apply for NHS jobs said: “I want to contribute to the NHS. After I had waited more than 12 months for my asylum claim to be processed, I applied for almost 100 care worker jobs – these jobs are on the immigration salary list. But I received rejections to all my applications and was told I was over-qualified.”
The radiologist who brought the legal challenge is now doing clinical practical training at a hospital. “I feel like a fish that has come back into the water being able to work in a hospital again. I’m alive again,” he said. “There is a shortage of radiologists but we were not allowed to help.”
The neuro-rehabilitation specialist said: “I wanted to be a doctor from a very young age so I could help people. It was frustrating and disappointing to have been barred from doing this before we started the legal challenge.”
Dr Aisha Awan, a GP and senior clinical lecturer at the University of Manchester, and director of REACHE said: “There is increasing displacement of people by conflict and global events, we must ethically address that doctors, nurses and health professionals becoming deskilled is a huge loss to humanity. This is alongside it being economically counterproductive, undermining NHS workforce capacity and negatively impacting mental health and integration.”
Becky Hart of Bhatt Murphy solicitors, who represents the two doctors who brought the legal challenge, said: “Our clients, two highly qualified doctors, were prohibited from working in their shortage specialities in the NHS for over a year. We are glad the secretary of state has finally agreed to amend her policy to expand the jobs those claiming asylum can work in to include doctors, nurses, and other skilled occupations. This case highlights how nonsensical and harmful it is both for the individuals and society to ban work for people seeking asylum who wish to work.”
