Britain’s medical regulator has launched a major inquiry into the competence of foreign doctors after it emerged that they are now twice as likely to face disciplinary hearings as UK medical graduates.

Figures seen by The Times also reveal that triple the number of doctors who trained abroad were struck off the UK medical register last year compared with 2005.

The findings, part of a report compiled by the General Medical Council, have prompted the profession’s regulator to commission seven research projects, which will cover issues including the competence of foreign doctors and whether they are subject to institutional racism within the health service.

More than 5,000 cases were dealt with by the GMC in 2006, 303 of which culminated in fitness-to-practise hearings and 54 doctors were struck off. Of these, nearly two thirds - 35 doctors - had trained outside the UK.

The range of offences included sexual misconduct, dishonesty and failing to provide an adequate level of care for patients. Among the cases in the past three months have been a Hungarian doctor struck off for dishonesty, a Nigerian for clinical incompetence and misdiagnosis and an American-trained doctor who had sexually harassed a nurse. One Spanish-trained psychiatrist was found to have abused his position over the use of prescription drugs.

Last month Gordon Brown pledged to tighten checks on medical staff who trained overseas after three NHS doctors were charged in connection with the attempted car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow.

But medical regulators suggest that patient safety may be compromised by current procedures, which require some doctors to produce no more than a degree certificate and a letter of reference before they can start work. The GMC said there was a growing number of complaints about GPs and hospital doctors, but a “disproportionate” number of overseas-trained doctors were appearing before its disciplinary panels. Strikingly, 30 per cent of complaints against foreign doctors came from other health professionals or the police, who were the source of less than 15 per cent of complaints against UK-trained doctors.

The GMC has commissioned researchers to look into the pattern, for which there is currently “no good explanation”, it said. It added that doctors were only struck off when it would endanger patients and the wider public to do otherwise.

One of the projects coordinated by the Economic and Social Research Council is already under way, while six others are due to start in the next few months. They include proposals from academics at the London School of Economics and the universities of Newcastle and Leicester to investigate how doctors come to work in the UK and set out which of them might present a particular risk to patients.

Under current rules, doctors from Europe can register and treat patients in Britain but are not tested for clinical competence and do not have to prove they can speak English, unlike those from Australia or elsewhere who are naturally fluent.

The GMC and other regulators fear that patient care may be at risk , and have called for a change in the law to test doctors from the EU.

This week The Times revealed that hundreds of junior doctors who took up posts this month have not been vet-ted by the Criminal Records Bureau.

Hospital trust managers complained that they could not check the criminal records of some applicants because they received the names too late.

Of the 5,085 complaints lodged against doctors last year, a rate of almost 100 a week, nearly 40 per cent referred to overseas-trained doctors - roughly in proportion to their numbers in the NHS workforce. A far greater number of international medical graduates were referred to hearings compared with UK graduates (34 per cent as against 16 per cent last year).

Paul Philips, director of standards and fitness-to-practise at the GMC, said: “The number of fitness-to-prac-tise cases we deal with is going up year on year. Doctors with a primary medical qualification from overseas or within the EU are disproportionately represented, and more are being referred to us than we should be see without a good explanation.”

The British Medical Association said that the pattern might be accounted for by a culture of institutional racism within the NHS.

A Department of Health spokesper-son said all NHS doctors were subject to stringent preemployment checks.

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