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Calls to end ‘backdoor’ nurse recruitment deals with red-list countries

UK should suspend recruitment from vulnerable countries and ‘move towards self-sufficiency’ says International Council of Nurses chief executive
A nurse in Nigeria where there have been reports of healthcare services struggling due to international recruitment of nursing staff

UK should suspend recruitment from vulnerable countries and ‘move towards self-sufficiency’ says International Council of Nurses chief executive

A nurse in Nigeria where there have been reports of healthcare services struggling due to international recruitment of nursing staff
A nurse in Nigeria where there have been reports of healthcare services struggling due to international recruitment of nursing staff Picture: iStock

Agreements that allow backdoor recruitment from red-list countries should be prohibited to prevent a drain of nurses in developing countries, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) has said.

Calls for an end to backdoor agreements that allow nurse recruitment from ‘vulnerable’ countries

ICN chief executive Howard Catton told Nursing Standard there should not be an ‘escape clause’ that allows high-income countries like the UK to poach nurses from countries on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) red list.

He said: ‘Given how vulnerable those countries are, we don’t think there should be that escape clause or the backdoor of a government-to-government agreement. We would like to see a moratorium on recruitment from those countries.’

It comes as new Nursing and Midwifery Council annual register data published last week revealed almost half of professionals joining the UK register last year were trained overseas. It showed a 610% increase in international recruits joining the register from five years ago.

While active recruitment of health professionals from red-list countries is banned because of their own workforce shortages, individual governments can form their own deals which bypass the WHO’s rules. The UK struck such a deal with Nepal last year.

Recruitment from ‘safe’ countries also criticised

Mr Catton also called on the UK to consider curbing recruitment from ‘safe’ countries, such as India and the Philippines where the majority of the UK’s international recruits come from, to plug workforce gaps.

‘Those countries have their own needs or are experiencing their own shortages which means that the risk of doing harm to those countries… is increasing,’ he said.

He said wealthy countries were not just recruiting graduates from low-income places but were ‘deliberately targeting’ experienced or specialist nurses.

‘If those nurses leave there is often not an obvious replacement and it can mean that it is not possible to continue to deliver the health services in those areas,’ he added.

Several reports have suggested the Philippines and Nigeria are facing staffing problems after nurses have been lured away by developed countries.

Mr Catton said the government should commit to ‘moving towards self-sufficiency’ in the long-awaited NHS workforce plan and, if this is not possible, outline what percentage of the future workforce could be made up of international recruits.

UK to provide £15 million to strengthen health workforce in three African countries

The UK’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) recently announced £15 million of funding for Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana to ‘strengthen the health workforce and build resilience against global threats’.

Some £6 million will be used to support the WHO in delivering improved administration systems and ‘training and retention opportunities’, while UK institutions will be linked with local health systems in ‘promoting skills exchanges and improving the curriculum, regulation and guidance’ in the three countries, the DHSC said.


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