If you want to employ a global doctor

To help employers interested in recruiting global doctors into service-level posts, the resources on these pages signpost to relevant information. This is a general guide based on our understanding of the relevant processes; the RCR is not an expert in employment and immigration law. Your HR department should be able to advise you further on the implications of recruiting doctors in respect of visas and other relevant issues. Different rules may apply to the recruitment of global doctors into training posts.

The GMC has general information on its website about employers' responsibilities when employing doctors.

Do encourage your doctors to apply for membership of the RCR, which will give them a range of benefits including access to reduced rates for our CPD events, the RCR Learning e-learning hub, the journal, an ePortfolio account if they need it and keep them up to date with developments in the specialty. 

• Visas, recruitment and advertising

• GMC registration

• Job planning and development for overseas doctors

Visas, recruitment and advertising

1. Doctors from outside the UK are likely to need a visa to work in the UK.
2. For a consultant or specialty doctor post, or similar, this will be a Skilled worker visa which has replaced the Tier 2 (General) work visa.
3. A skilled worker visa requires the migrant doctor to have an employer sponsor. Your organisation will need to be an approved sponsor for the purpose of sponsoring the overseas doctor for a skilled worker visa. Your HR department will be able to advise you.
4. Visa applications can be rejected if important information is incorrectly entered which will lead to a delay in the doctor taking up the post. 
5. NHS Employers has information on its website about International Recruitment.​

 GMC registration

1. Obtaining GMC registration can take some time.  We advise overseas doctors to start whatever process they are going to use at the earliest opportunity.  If the doctor to whom you offer a job does not have GMC registration, it may take some months to achieve, depending on their particular circumstances.

2. Routes to GMC Registration are set by the GMC.  The RCR has no power to vary these.

3. There are different types of GMC registration depending on what kind of job the doctor is going to work in.

4. Full registration on the medical register with a licence to practise is needed to work as a specialty doctor, locum consultant, in fellowship-type posts, and so on. Full GMC registration does not allow a doctor to take up a substantive (permanent) NHS consultant post. 

5. Specialist registration with a licence to practise is needed to work as a substantive (permanent) NHS consultant.

6. Doctors with a "relevant European qualification" may be able to apply for GMC full and/or specialist registration using those qualifications.  Since Brexit, it is the qualification they hold and not their nationality that determines whether they can use these qualifications to obtain registration.

7. For those who do not hold a relevant European qualification, other options are set out on Routes to GMC Registration. 

8. Sponsorship by the RCR is an exceptional route to GMC full registration and is part of our commitment to facilitate philanthropic international activity across both our faculties.  It is only potentially possible for those taking up a supervised training post for a maximum of two years, before returning to their home country.  It cannot be used to employ consultants, specialty doctors, or similar.

Job planning and development for overseas doctors

1. The RCR has issued advice about consultant job planning which can be found on our page guide to job planning in clinical radiology.

2. You can appoint a suitable global-trained doctor to a locum consultant post (or anything other than a substantive consultant post) if they have full GMC registration. A substantive consultant post requires GMC specialist registration.

3. If you can help them prepare for their specialist registration application (CESR) while they are with you then this may turn into a longer-term benefit.  They may be offered a substantive consultant post pending their successful application for specialist registration (recognising of course that a successful application nor the length of time the application might take can’t be guaranteed).

4. Converting a vacant consultant post to a specialty doctor post may have benefits in expanding the pool of global doctors who have the skills and competence to contribute to the service at that grade while giving them the opportunity in their job plan to prepare for an application for specialist registration and consultant practice.

5. Specialty doctors should have the equivalent of at least four years of training, at least two of which must be in a relevant specialty or the equivalent. See our RCR guidance for appointments.
6. NHS Employers and the BMA have issued  a UK guide to job planning for specialty doctors and associate specialists
7. The AoMRC has issued a joint document about SAS doctor development
8. NHS Employers have advice about inducting doctors 
9. To help a global doctor prepare for a CESR application it is useful to support them in consolidating areas of UK training and practice that might not be covered in the same way overseas. Each CESR application is individual to the applicant.  However, generally, we find that is it useful to consider consolidating evidence in these areas:

• MDT meetings and associated activity
• Formal appraisal
• Clinical audit and/or quality improvement projects, with evidence as to how and whether a change was implemented
• Active participation in other safety and quality activity such as discrepancy, clinical governance, morbidity, and mortality, etc.
• Double-reporting or other experience in curriculum areas that may not have been covered in the doctor’s recent training or experience.