SHE works for a service blighted by long waiting lists which aims to support Scotland’s most vulnerable children.

Married to a Scot, a mother of three with 25 years spent living and working in Scotland, consultant psychiatrist Claudia Grimmer would seem to be precisely the kind of EU national Britain would be desperate to keep.

But when the Brexit vote prompted East German-born Dr Grimmer to apply for British citizenship, she found herself drowning in a complex, frustrating and dehumanising process which would rival the darkest days from beyond the Berlin Wall.

The 51-year-old consultant has revealed she has faced a string of demands and “almost laughable” tests devised to prove her commitment to Britain, which she says have left her feeling unwanted and rejected.

At one point she was forced to sit a language test to prove she could speak English – despite having letters to show she had sat psychiatry exams here – and had her glasses and Fitbit watch removed to ensure she didn’t have access to technology which might enable her to cheat.

On another occasion she was ordered not to speak in German to a fellow countryman who had just sat a language test, and told to talk only in English.

She says the treatment has made her feel she was under suspicion despite not having done anything wrong.

“It was like being searched at the airport; you haven’t done anything but you feel like you are not trusted, and you have to prove yourself,” she added.

Dr Grimmer, who works as a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist for NHS Fife, has now also called for greater support for EU nationals working in vital health services from medical organisations and the NHS, amid concerns that confusion over post-Brexit arrangements are creating deep and long lasting divisions.

She said: “I feel in the end they will say ‘yes people who have been here for a certain number of years can stay’, but it will be grudgingly and out of a need for people, not because they welcome you and value you.

“And even if they do say it, the damage has been done.”

Dr Grimmer arrived in Scotland in 1992 after celebrating the collapse of the Berlin Wall. She was working in Stornoway when she met her husband, Angus Macrae, and completed her medical degree in Germany before returning to the UK to embark on her psychiatry specialism.

But while she recalls feeling “completely integrated”, the Brexit vote left her “quite paralysed” and angry that she had been denied the chance to vote.

She applied for British citizenship earlier this year amid concerns that she might be asked to leave the country when Britain formally leaves the EU.

She added: “By then I will have had close to 30 years of contributing to the country and I didn’t want to be in position where people suddenly say ‘we don’t want you any more you don’t qualify for certain care’”.

However she said her application for British citizenship has been dogged by months of uncertainty and frustration, with curt correspondence, confusing demands for paperwork which has already been sent and tests which she says bordered on being “laughable”.

“When I read what I have to do for the citizenship test I was incensed,” she said. “I had to go for a language test. My job is so language-based, I sat psychiatry exams here, it felt ridiculous. I didn’t want to spend an afternoon and £150 sitting a language test.”

Despite producing letters which supported her, she says she was told she had to sit the test. “I spoke about life in Scotland and I used some colloquialisms,” she said. “I got a tick on a box that meant I was adjusted, settled and with a grasp of the English language. It would be funny if I hadn’t had to do it.

“I also had to show my passport and it was examined under a light. I had to give up my Fitbit and they looked at my glasses to check I didn’t have some kind of Google Translate device.”

Her two older children, who have German passports, also applied for British passports and were tested, despite having lived in Scotland all their lives.

“The children have got a Scottish surname but they had to prove they lived here and were asked questions like ‘what is the house where you live built of’ and ‘where is the local swimming pool?’”

Scotland’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is under increasing pressure from rising demand and a shortage of staff. Figures this week show more than 10,000 children have been forced to wait longer than the 18-week target time.

A BMA Scotland spokesman said it has called for uncertainty over Brexit’s impact on EU nationals to be resolved: “The ongoing uncertainty over the future status of doctors from other European countries who are working in our NHS is extremely damaging and has understandably caused a great deal of anxiety and stress for those affected.”

Dr Elaine Lockhart, chairwoman of the Children and Adolescent Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland said their medical workforce was greatly valued and particularly those working with children and adolescents with mental health problems where “we have a shortage”.

A Scottish Government spokesman said it was “unacceptable” that EU nationals living in Scotland had received no firm assurances about their status. He added: “There is wide support for Scotland to have responsibility for our own immigration policy.”