There is very little research into the effectiveness of
the IELTS as it is currently administered for overseas
health care professionals. Evidence on the impact of the
current language testing mechanism on health care
provision is anecdotal. While data collection for this
research was focussed on the mobility of health
professionals, and not specifically language testing,
these findings emerged through questions based on
migration processes. This secondary analysis shows there are negative perceptions of IELTS; however, the
full impact of this is not clear. Many of the negative
perceptions could be alleviated if the testing structure
was reviewed, therefore we recommend further research
into the impact of concurrent scoring of level 7 on all
four components – does this impact patient safety? The
two year expiration date – what are the impacts of this
for health practitioners and their patients? Also, further
research and discussion is required on alternative
measures of English language proficiency that may be
more suitable to clinical settings.