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London hospitals have been barred from hiring more than 80 foreign doctors and therapists due to visa restrictions, the Standard can reveal.

Barts Health, the UK’s biggest trust with five hospitals in east London, has been refused 35 visas in the past six months, 26 of them for senior doctors.

King’s College Hospital NHS Trust said 23 applications for doctor visas were refused between February and April.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ has been unable to recruit 17 top doctors, mainly at the specialist registrar grade, and a dental practitioner.

University College London Hospitals, which has nine sites in central London, has been blocked from recruiting eight doctors, despite making 19 visa applications for them.

An immigration cap restricts non-EU skilled workers to 20,700 a year, and the number of “points” needed to receive a visa rises as places are given out.

Since December, Barts Health has applied for 92 “Tier 2 certificates of sponsorship” for potential recruits but been granted 57 — 10 doctors and 47 nurses. The 35 refused include 26 medical registrars, five occupational therapists, four physiotherapists and one other health professional.

Registrars are senior doctors just underneath consultant level. “They keep the show on the road,” one source said. “We only go overseas for really critical posts. It’s not cheap to do it. When you find someone who is willing and ready to move but they can’t because there’s no visa, it’s really ­frustrating.”

The Standard recently revealed that the Prime Minister had overruled a plea from Cabinet ministers for more foreign doctors to be granted visas to tackle staff shortages.

The 12 medical royal colleges, British Medical Association and NHS Employers have written to Home Secretary Sajid Javid pleading for the cap to be reviewed as it was “affecting patient safety” in some trusts.

The Home Office said: “The Gov­ernment fully recognises the contribution that international professionals make to the UK. However, it is ­im­portant that our immigration system works in the national interest, ensuring that ­employers look first to the UK resident labour market before recruiting from ­overseas.

“When demand exceeds the monthly available allocation of Tier 2 (General) places, priority is given to applicants filling a shortage of PhD-level ­occupations. No occupation on the Shortage Occupation List has been refused a place.”