A recent study has revealed that nearly 1 in 10 practicing doctors on the British medical register comes from the EU, and has not undertaken any language or competence tests before working in the country.

The surprising and worrying figures have managed to bring to light the lax controls over European locums taking up posts in hospitals in the NHS and offering out-of-hour GP cover.

Unlike doctors who come in from the rest of the world, who are required to prove that they possess apt language skills and medical knowledge before they are officially registered, such testing is forbidden for doctors who have been qualified from Europe and Switzerland.

In wake of the numbers, campaigners are now demanding a complete revamp of the system, more-so after the death of a 94 year old grandmother, which was the result of appalling blunders by a German doctor who was flown in by the NHS.

While undergoing what was initially meant to be a regular hip operation at the Grantham Hospital in Lincolnshire, Ena Dickinson ended up losing about 50% of the blood in her body when the German surgeon accidently cut off an artery and started panicking and speaking in German in the OT.