Britain recruiting over 5,000 nurses from Asia & Africa to fill NHS shortages

A National Health Service (NHS) recruitment drive is targeting nurses from overseas. The exercise is as a result of that fear European Union (EU) nationals will flee ahead of Brexit in 2019.

Nurses from India, Africa and Southeast Asia could be called in under a scheme to “earn, learn and return.” Around 5,500 will be recruited and brought to Britain, according to Chief Executive of Health Education England Ian Cumming.

“We believe that doing it that way is more ethically robust,” he told MPs. “We aren’t denuding a country of their valued resource but we are allowing people to come here for a fixed period of time. Yes, to help us with a staffing shortage that we have got, but also to learn, to earn money, and to take that back into their country.”

Cumming said he is not stealing a “valued resource” from other countries but finding a temporary fix for the UK, after which nurses will go home with NHS experience. The plan drew criticism from the Royal College of Nursing, which said the expected gap in staffing is expected to hit 40,000. The scheme can “barely be considered a sticking plaster,” it said. 

Source: Reuters