Doctors from other countries who challenged the UK government in the High Court over new rules restricting their right to work in Britain lost their case last week.

Mr Justice Stanley Burnton ruled that the government had acted lawfully when it abolished the permit free training scheme, which allowed graduates of foreign medical schools outside the European Union to take up training posts in the United Kingdom without a work permit.

He also upheld guidance from the Department of Health that has made it much harder for doctors on the highly skilled migrant programme to obtain appointments in the NHS.

The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, which brought the challenge, was given permission to now take its case to the Court of Appeal. Ramesh Mehta, …