GP practices no longer need to renew visa sponsor licence

GP practices employing international medical graduates will no longer need to renew their visa sponsorship licence.

The Home Office has notified sponsors that from 6 April this year, it will ‘remove the requirement to renew’ their sponsor licences.

To do this, the Home Office has extended the expiry dates on all licences due to expire after 6 April by 10 years.

Before this change, GP practices hosting staff from abroad would have to renew their sponsorship licence every four years, at a cost of £536.

The RCGP described the move, announced at the end of January, as a ‘positive step’ but highlighted that there are ‘still too many barriers’ stopping IMGs who have completed UK GP training from joining the workforce.

Given GP training usually lasts only three years, IMG GP trainees do not qualify for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) meaning they have to find employment at a GP practice as soon as their training ends. 

Around 30% of IMG GP trainees responding to a survey by the RCGP last year said they found the visa system so difficult they were considering giving up on their plans to work as GP in the UK. 

Last year, the Government committed to granting IMGs a four-month visa extension after completing GP specialty training, which will be added ‘automatically’. 

RCGP chair Professor Kamila Hawthorne said: ‘The College’s lobbying efforts of the Home Office resulted in a four-month extension on completion of training to give GPs more time to find appropriate sponsorship. 

‘This was a welcome move, but these IMGs must still jump through hoops to find a practice with a visa sponsorship licence that is able to employ them – and there is a lot of variation between ICBs on the number of their practices which hold visa sponsorship licences.’

NHS England’s primary care recovery plan last year said the national commissioner, working with the Home Office, will ‘continue to increase the number of GP surgeries holding visa sponsorship licences’. 

NHS England and the Home Office had also been looking into whether ‘umbrella bodies’ such as ICBs could sponsor IMG GPs to remain in the UK. 

In its general election manifesto last year, the RCGP called on political parties to guarantee permanent residence for international medical graduates qualifying as GPs to ensure they can work in the NHS.