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03/07/2006
NHS to no longer recruit junior foreign nurses
The NHS should no longer hire junior nurses from abroad, the government has announced.
The role of Band 5 nurses is to be taken off the Home Office shortage occupation list. The role had been on the list in order to support international recruitment where NHS trusts have been unable to fill vacancies using UK or EEA trained staff.
The government said that extra investment in nurse education meant that the NHS no longer needed to recruit junior doctors from abroad.
The decision to remove general nurses from the shortage occupation list means that that employers will need to advertise any vacancies first and only if they are unable to fill the post can they turn to international recruitment.
At present, this change applies to nursing posts graded at Agenda for Change bands 5 and 6, where nurses have professional experience ranging from a few months to around one and a half years.
Commenting on change, Health Minister Lord Warner said: "We are now moving away from year-on-year growth in the NHS workforce to more of a steady state where there is a closer match between demand and supply. Large-scale international nurse recruitment across the NHS was only ever intended to be a short-term measure. The aim of the NHS has always been to look towards home-grown staff in the first instance and have a diverse workforce that reflects local communities.
"There to ensure that UK resident and newly trained nurses are given every opportunity to continue their career in the UK and to secure the future workforce of the NHS, we are today taking Agenda for Change band 5 and 6 nurses off the shortage list."
However, The Royal College of Nursing criticised the decision, saying that international nurses were being made "scapegoats" for the current NHS debt problem.
Dr Beverly Malone, RCN General Secretary, said that over 150,000 nurses were due to retire within the next five to ten years and warned that it would not be possible to replace all of them with home-grown nurses.
Dr Malone told the BBC that the removal of nurses from the shortage occupation list was "short-termism in the worst possible sense".
(KMcA)
The role of Band 5 nurses is to be taken off the Home Office shortage occupation list. The role had been on the list in order to support international recruitment where NHS trusts have been unable to fill vacancies using UK or EEA trained staff.
The government said that extra investment in nurse education meant that the NHS no longer needed to recruit junior doctors from abroad.
The decision to remove general nurses from the shortage occupation list means that that employers will need to advertise any vacancies first and only if they are unable to fill the post can they turn to international recruitment.
At present, this change applies to nursing posts graded at Agenda for Change bands 5 and 6, where nurses have professional experience ranging from a few months to around one and a half years.
Commenting on change, Health Minister Lord Warner said: "We are now moving away from year-on-year growth in the NHS workforce to more of a steady state where there is a closer match between demand and supply. Large-scale international nurse recruitment across the NHS was only ever intended to be a short-term measure. The aim of the NHS has always been to look towards home-grown staff in the first instance and have a diverse workforce that reflects local communities.
"There to ensure that UK resident and newly trained nurses are given every opportunity to continue their career in the UK and to secure the future workforce of the NHS, we are today taking Agenda for Change band 5 and 6 nurses off the shortage list."
However, The Royal College of Nursing criticised the decision, saying that international nurses were being made "scapegoats" for the current NHS debt problem.
Dr Beverly Malone, RCN General Secretary, said that over 150,000 nurses were due to retire within the next five to ten years and warned that it would not be possible to replace all of them with home-grown nurses.
Dr Malone told the BBC that the removal of nurses from the shortage occupation list was "short-termism in the worst possible sense".
(KMcA)
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