There must be urgent changes to the way foreign doctors working shifts in the NHS are vetted, senior MPs said today.

In a highly critical report, the health select committee warned that NHS trusts "were not doing their jobs" by failing to check language and medical skills.

It pointed out that no disciplinary action had been taken against an NHS body that did not check the language skills of German doctor Daniel Ubani, who unlawfully killed a patient on his first shift in Britain. Seventy-year-old David Gray was accidently given ten times the normal dose of diamorphine.

In evidence to the committee last month, the General Medical Council's (GMC) chief executive, Niall Dickson, said there was a "gaping hole" in the registration system for doctors coming from the European Union.

The report said: "If the GMC had been able to check the language skills and clinical competence of EEA doctors wishing to practise as GPs, lives might have been saved. There is a difference of legal opinion between the Department of Health and the GMC. We recommend that, without delay, the Department and the Council share their legal advice about the legality of amending the Medical Act 1983."