The UK's Nursing and
Midwifery Council (NMC) has announced a freeze on the registration of nurses
from outside Europe after an internal audit found that its systems for
verifying qualifications of foreign applicants were inadequate. The freeze has
already prevented 160 nurses from taking up work in the UK's National Health
Service (NHS) in the last month. Nurses including those from outside the
European Economic Area cannot work in the NHS unless they have been registered
with the NMC.
They
will also require a UK visa. If they come under Tier 2 of the UK's points-based
visa system, they will need to have a job offer from a UK employer which is
licensed to sponsor Tier 2 visa applicants. Some qualified nurses, particularly
those from Australia, Canada and New Zealand with a grandparent born in the UK,
can apply to come to the UK with a UK ancestry visa.
However,
the first step is to become registered with the NMC. The NMC website claims 'if
nurses or midwives trained in countries outside the European Union (EU) or
European Economic Area (EEA) have been admitted to our register, you can be
satisfied that we have been able to check the education and practice experience
of the new applicants. We will also have been able to verify their good
character and language competence.
Not currently able to process applications
However, just below
these words it says 'We are not currently able to process applications from
outside the EU and EEA and are reviewing our policies in this area'.
An
NMC spokeswoman told UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph 'The quality of
information supplied in some cases is not proof of fraud but does not give us
the level of confidence we would want'. These problems emerged in February. No
fake documentation has yet been found but the doubts mean that it is not
considered safe to continue with registrations.
Katherine
Murphy of the UK's Patients Association congratulated the NMC on admitting the
problem but said that the public would be concerned. She asked why 'if
supermarkets can check these kinds of documents before employing someone, why
can't the NMC?'
NMC not able to protect the public
Dr Peter Carter of the
Royal College of Nursing told The Telegraph 'The NMC's main job is to protect
the public. It would seem that they are having problems doing this. We are
naturally concerned that the NMC has felt a need to stop registering foreign
nurses. They are an important addition to the NHS but public protection is the
most important issue'.
The
NMC is the UK's main regulator for nurses and midwives. It approves about 1,000
applications from outside the European Economic Area every year, authorising
applicants to work in the NHS. These are now suspended pending a review.
The
NMC is also the main regulator for UK and EU-resident nurses and has the power
to 'strike nurses off' thereby banning them from working in the UK. Last month,
the NMC was told after an audit that there was a 'red' warning about its
register of nurses because warnings about misconduct were not appearing when
prospective employers searched the register.
0 comments:
Post a Comment