A LOCUM doctor at Colchester’s hospital trust used Google translate to understand English medical terminology, a meeting heard.

Another did not have the “prescribed connection” by the General Medical Council - a validation required by doctors every five years.

The incidents at Colchester General Hospital were raised by auditors.

At a meeting of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust’s board of directors yesterday it emerged the first doctor, whose nationality has not been disclosed, was spotted during checks on the agency Pertemps.

The audit was to ensure staff it provides to the trust had properly undergone checks on qualifications, references, restrictions to practice and English language checks.

The trust’s managing director Dr Barbara Buckley told the meeting: “This doctor was observed looking up medical terminology and looking it up on the internet.

“We want doctors coming to the hospital, or agency nurses coming to the hospital to get language checks.”

The locum no longer works for the trust.

Chief executive Mr Hulme said: “Every doctor and nurse who is employed here has to go through a national requirement test and they don’t get registered unless they pass that.

“People using the internet I think, is entirely appropriate.

“Many years ago you would see doctors walking around with a [reference] book, now they look on the internet and that’s possibly quite concerning for patients.”

Finance boss Dawn Scrafield said internal auditors raised the incident. She added the bar set for standards expected of locums was “very high”.

Ms Scrafield added: “They used a check list the agency issues but we have also introduced as a requirement for every locum doctor that comes to the site for the first time has a further check on ability and use of the system.”

The report to the meeting said both incidents were “priority one” recommendations.

It said: “The second priority one recommendation related to a finding that a locum with English language difficulties needed to use Google to translate English medical terminology.”

The report added the agency would be required to adhere to a checklist for the trust.