Doctors trained overseas are five times more likely to be struck off than those trained in Britain

The country with the biggest single number of doctors who have been removed or suspended from the medical register, is India, followed by Nigeria and Egypt. Three quarters of the doctors struck off the British medical register in 2012 were trained abroad. In total, 669 doctors have been either struck off or suspended by the GMC over the last five years. Of those, only 249 were British (37%) while 420 (63%) were trained abroad – whereas one-third of doctors on the register were trained abroad, and two-thirds in Britain. In 2008, the British pensioner David Gray was killed by a Nigerian doctor, Daniel Ubani, who gave him ten times the recommended dose of pain relief while working as a locum. The figures show that India has the highest number of doctors who have been suspended or struck off the register with 123. Nigeria and Egypt also fare badly, each with 33 doctors subject to the measures since 2008. When the numbers of doctors disciplined is compared with the total number working here from each country, the highest proportion of those who have been struck off or suspended come from the African nation of Cameroon. Since 2008, there has been average of 18 Cameroonian doctors working here at any one time. Of those, one has been suspended, and one struck off. Mexico, Cuba, France and Uganda were the countries with the next highest proportion of doctors subject to the disciplinary measures.