In a temporary relief to beleaguered Indian doctors, Britain has decided to keep the new immigration laws, which will hit their employment prospects, in abeyance for the first round of recruitment this year in the National Health Service.

The guideline issued by the Health Department on website for recruitment to training posts said 'doctors with limited leave to enter/remain in the UK in immigration categories that allow them to work will be considered for short-listing in round 1 if their leave is current at August 1'.

From January 22 to February 4, more than 30,000 doctors applied for the 21,000 jobs with the NHS, the biggest employer of medicos, and of them about 12,000 applicants are Indians.

A shortlist of candidates will be released on Monday and interviews will take place in the first week of March.

Since the new immigration rules were announced in April 2006, under which the employer has to prove that they had no appropriate candidates from the UK and EU before offering it to the non-EU candidate, an estimated 5,000 Indian doctors have returned to their home country as they have little prospect of getting a job.

According to the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, which had challenged the decision in the High Court unsuccessfully, thousands more would have been forced to leave by August if the 'discriminatory' rules would have been implemented.

Welcoming the latest decision of the Health department, BAPIO said on Sunday, "The result (of the new regulations) will be that all doctors applying will be treated equally and the short listing will be based on merit rather than nationality."

"We are happy that the Department of Health has responded sensibly. We expect that all doctors will be treated equally and on merit rather than on nationality. This is in the best interests of the British people who deserve the best doctors. We will continue to work to eradicate discrimination in any form," Ramesh Mehta, BAPIO President, told PTI.

The latest decision means that the new immigration rules announced in March last year, which was upheld by the High Court on February 9, have been kept in abeyance and all doctors, irrespective of their country of origin, will be treated equally during the shortlisting of applicants on Monday.

BAPIO, one of the two petitioners seeking judicial review of the April 2006 immigration guidelines applicable to non-EU doctors, has asked its solicitors to file an appeal against the High Court judgement that disallowed a judicial review of the guidelines.

Subsequently BAPIO wrote to the Department of Health asking to continue to keep the new rules in abeyance as it was appealing against the Feb 9 verdict.

Mehta said that they planned to raised 100,000 pounds for filing the appeal out of which 75,000 pounds had already been collected.

Raman Lakshman, vice-chair for policy for BAPIO, claimed it would not have happened if the international medical graduate community had quietly accepted the new rules when they were announced in March 2006.

He said 'the U-turn by the Department of Health is due to the sustained campaign of BAPIO supported by thousands of international medical graduates'.

Lakshman told PTI, "While we do believe this is a step in the right direction, we remain concerned that the guidance needs more clarity as we have already heard from a number of international doctors who do not currently have a valid working visa for August. We fear that the inclusion of a clause regarding visa status on August 1 will cause much confusion and anxiety and we will be taking this up with our solicitors on Monday."

Meanwhile, the Royal College of Physicians expressed concern about the welfare of international medical graduates who have been adversely affected by the new immigration rules announced in March last year.

'The Royal College of Physicians wishes to express its concern for the welfare of doctors subject to the immigration rules currently working in, or applying for, UK training posts', it said. 'The college urges the Department of Health and the Home Office to issue, as an urgent priority, unambiguous advice on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme to employers and postgraduate deans to remove the uncertainty which prevents the International Medical Graduates from making informed decisions for their professional futures'.

The British Medical Association has also expressed its disappointment on the High Court verdict.