SIR – While many of Britain’s brightest students are unable to get on medical courses at home, it may surprise many that we recruit doctors from some of the poorest countries in the world. The universities in these countries have few computers or medical text books and trainees are taught from blackboards in cramped classrooms where they sit on the floor.

Those trained outside the EU must sit a test of basic medical competence and score seven out of seven on an English language exam.

But those from within the EU are exempt from such checks due to the strict freedom of movement rules and are allowed to register automatically.

This causes much concern that EU doctors are being allowed to work in Britain even if they can barely speak English and have rusty medical skills.

G B DIPPER

Leominster