A new report by peers in the House of Lords has expressed fears over the competence and language skills of foreign doctors and warns that it could take six years for more strictly controlled regulations to come into force.

The report, from the Lords EU committee, entitled Safety First, says that measures need to be taken now to protect patients from possible harm and that doctors, nurses, dentists and pharmacists who come into the UK from overseas should be checked to ensure they have the necessary competence and language skills as well as up-to-date experience. However, they warned that under a timetable for changes through a European commission review, it could take until 2017 for those changes to come into effect.

There has been pressure placed on government and medical bodies since the case of the German doctor Daniel Ubani who killed a patient, David Gray, with a fatal dose of the painkiller diamorphine, while on his first shift in the UK. Since then both the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Royal College of GPs has criticised the current system, which, they claim, puts patients at risk. If you have suffered medical negligence from medical staff with no or little english speaking abilitys, contact our medical negligence team for advice.

Currently the GMC can only test a candidate's competence and command of English if they are from outside of the EU and therefore Dr Ubani, because he came from within the EU, was not tested. New changes, if agreed by member states, would include EU doctors in the tests, though this could take years to come into force.

The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has said that there is some action that the UK government can take independent of the EU, and this will be in place well before 2017.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/19/peers-tougher-rules-eu-medics