Wales Asylum Seeking and Refugee Doctors (WARD)

The Wales Asylum Seeking and Refugee Doctors (WARD) Group has been funded by the Wales Government for four recurrent years. Since its establishment, the number of asylum seeking and refugee doctors has grown from 16 to 115.

The project grew and the number of asylum and refugee doctors doubled within a year. In September 2002 the project received initial funding of £73,600 for a pilot project to assist in the implementation of a programme to address the education and training needs of refugee/asylum seeker doctors in Wales and to help the asylum seeking and refugee doctors to meet the standards required to pass the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) and PLAB (Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board) tests. Since 2002, the governance of the project lies with the Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education, Wales College of Medicine, Biology, Life and Health Sciences, Cardiff University.

A number of refugees and asylum seekers, who are professionally trained as doctors have either moved to Wales or have been housed within Wales under the UK Governments’ dispersal scheme. The Welsh Government recognises that facilitating the integration of refugees and asylum seekers will assist in maintaining future doctors’ numbers within the NHS in Wales. There are approximately 2000 asylum seekers and many refugees in Wales. To date we have identified 115 doctors.

The overall objective is to ensure that newly arrived doctors in Wales, who are asylum seekers or refugees can be presented with the opportunity to revalidate their qualifications, thereby enabling them to develop and apply their skills within the NHS in Wales.

The WARD team has developed a wide range of courses. All refugee/asylum seeker doctors should attend a minimum programme of training consisting of the following:

1. IELTS preparation course and examination
2. PLAB1 preparation course and examination
3. PLAB 2 preparation course and examination
4. Supernumerary (FY1 level) Placements
5. Apply for Foundation Post or Specialty Training Post

If a doctor fails one of the above steps, they return to the previous step in the process.

The Business Manager attends a Drop-In Centre twice a week and holds regular one to one feedback with WARD members on training, individual progress, successes and failures. The Associate Dean meets with the WARD members regularly both on individual and group basis and holds active discussions and programme evaluation sessions.