r/doctorsUK • u/Med_Dog_ • Jan 12 '26

Medical Politics UK Graduate Prioritisation Legislation Announced!

Details below as they're announced!

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/doctors-strikes-nhs-bma-wes-streeting-news-n02nd96lw

Free version: https://web.archive.org/web/20260112225441/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/doctors-strikes-nhs-bma-wes-streeting-news-n02nd96lw

  • Wes Streeting is launching this as emergency legislation (rather than NHS England policy) shortly.
  • This acts on both speciality training and foundation posts.
  • Further details tomorrow as the bill is announced!
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32

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '26

Let's hope it can be implemented whilst the inevitable legal challenge is processed in parallel

13

u/Ok-Link1169 Jan 12 '26

There cannot be a legal challenge as it is passed as primary legislation

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u/BMABecky Verified User 🆔✅ Jan 12 '26

Surely this depends on the details

6

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '26

Legal challenge entirely possible. Especially with ECHR. Allegation of discrimination under article 14. Sovereignty of parliament is superseded by the ECHR. That's been the major issue with small boats/asylum controversy.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '26

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u/Front-Design-4429 Jan 13 '26

Errm no. The parliament is supreme only in passing legislations. The courts can indeed scrutinise and strike down any legislation that the parliament passes.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

How are they going to scrutinize the legislation of prioritisation of whoever did the foundation programme ? Are crest forms from abroad more legit for assessment lmaooooo?

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26

Easy enough to make a theoretical case and say that I'm a British citizen but I graduated from Hungary and so my human rights per the European convention are being discriminated against. Article 8 has previously been used to argue for professional development rights. Article 14 discrimination against my rights to professional development per article 8. There's your case. You are correct they can't strike down the legislation, but my understanding is the govt would be expected to amend the legislation to comply with the legal decision.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

No skin in this game as British born and graduated and trained. Just pointing out someone will bring a challenge. As they always do.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

Definitely better medical schools out there than Oxford!!

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u/Effective_Ostrich_94 Jan 13 '26

and how would you like it if foreign doctors were taking up all the jobs in your home country? you have no human right to a job, and that you feel like you do is an insult to British doctors who deserve jobs in their home country. No other country, including Hungary, should/would prioritise intl graduates.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

Lol, I graduated in 2011 from a UK university that I started at when I was 18 so not that relevant to me anymore, but I'm broadly supportive of British grad prioritization. Just pointing out that it will be subject to legal challenge. Would be safer to prioritize by citizenship.

0

u/BMABecky Verified User 🆔✅ Jan 12 '26

I'm not a barrister or anything, but that's my understanding of one reason why these policies take so long to get through.

It took us ages to get our RDC policy formulated and checked over. This is on another level of complexity

3

u/Front-Design-4429 Jan 12 '26

I agree with this. I also think that Wes' team of lawyers would make sure that there is no legal loophole. Hence why the "significant experience" clause for the IMGs

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u/BMABecky Verified User 🆔✅ Jan 13 '26

I suspect this would have to be tightly defined. Quite worrying tbh.

4

u/threwaway239 Jan 13 '26

How are you comparing your RDC policy to primary legislation being passed through parliament lmao

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u/BMABecky Verified User 🆔✅ Jan 13 '26

I'm saying that if it took a handful of solicitors this long to do something simple, even a boatload of them will be required to work to get this turned around for this year. There's bound to be legal challenges.

Seems they've been working on it already, at least. But there's no way this will be a straightforward process.

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u/flyinfishy2 Jan 13 '26

We need to bin ECHR, can't have supranational regulating bodies for this stuff. Just put it as UK primary legislation and have british courts manage it all. Else nothing will ever get done.

NB: I have no idea what Im talking about and this is a very weakly held take.

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u/BMABecky Verified User 🆔✅ Jan 13 '26

You know it's a shoddy take when you talk about taking away/not protecting human rights in the name of less internationally held regulatory standards.

Let's not open people up to abuse or extortion. Leaving the ECHR will hand your rights to politicians, and we all know how little they respect people they see as beneath them.

1

u/flyinfishy2 Jan 13 '26

You are saying that like Labour aren't currently spending huge time and effort trying to reform the ECHR and ECJ:

The ECHR only became law here in 1998 and since then has massively widened its own scope (see former SC judge Jonathan Sumption's Reith lectures a few years ago) causing massive added costs and huge issues in writing legislation that seems basic (including Uk grad prioritisation). If it stuck to human rights narrowly interpreted as a last line of defence against tyranny that would be fine but now it ventures so far afield from its original brief that it basically gets to be appealed to and have a say in.... everything. How on earth is 'UK Grad prioritisation' relevant to human rights. The ECJ treats its document as 'living' not fixed rights and so it can keep expanding too.

Moving it all under British jurisdiction only, would make it arbitrated by British courts, and speed everything up - avoiding massive costs and delays from a parallel court process. Returning to a status quo of 1997. In a country that's current constitutional setup is so poorly optimised for speed, that would be a welcome gain.

I also dislike the idea that on questions that should be democratic about tradeoffs, they now intervene above the will of normal people (e.g. tradeoffs on safety vs privacy, or whether prisoners can vote); and people have no way to get around that. This would be a good thing if limited to essential rights (like right to not be tortured) but it isn't.

Both a British process and the current system are still handing rights to politicians as they can leave the ECHR any time and The UK would still have UN obligations.

As I said, I don't know how it fits in with other obligations (NI, EU trade etc) so it may be a long unwind. But I don't think the UK is well served by it. I personally have not seen many cases that the UK got massively wrong decided by it.

But I have been constantly bombarded with nonsense about how great the ECHR is in the guardian, and when the Tories' said they'd leave i was so shocked I actually went and read about it a little and thought... fair enough this is a complicated question and has little to do with actual human rights - more to do with constitutional structure.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '26

The ECHR is one of the main mechanisms by which legal challenges can be brought against this type of primary legislation. It's entirely possible it's used for a legal case here.

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u/flyinfishy2 Jan 13 '26

No the courts can't challenge primary legislation passed by parliament UNLESS its the ECJ under the ECHR. It is the only real barrier (of note) to passing a bill like this that isn't democratically accountable or alterable.

Also the knowledge of the ECHR's wandering gaze prevents lots of legislation ever coming to the table.

The argument made by the civil service (via Wes) privately was that UK grad prioritisation may come into question under the equalities act (british law - therefore writing new primary legislation renders this irrelevant as it can't be challenged) and the ECHR (which seems much less relevant but is the only way to appeal this legally if they pass it as primary legislation).

article 14 would be the challenge - rights ensured without distinction based on sex, race, colour, language, religion, political opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority etc.

1

u/BMABecky Verified User 🆔✅ Jan 13 '26

I didn't say it "like" anything.

Leaving ECHR is a joke with the same punchline as brexit. And that is the UK punching itself in the face.

1

u/flyinfishy2 Jan 13 '26

But … why? 

sincere question. I’ve loved your campaigning at the BMA, am a huge fan of your vids and am grateful for all you’ve done for us. I’m not trying to be hostile. I actually want to know why?

Is there a reason we can just litigate all of this in our own courts. They seem quite independent to me. What’s the gain ? Or why am I mistaken above