The move is part of a drive by Health Secretary Steve Barclay to increase overseas recruitment to help fill workforce gaps in health and social care. Barclay believes thousands of additional health professionals will come as a result of new rules that will make it easier for medical regulators to register those who have qualified overseas. If the change proves successful, it will help pave the way for more nurses and dentists coming to work in Britain from countries including India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, the Philippines and Malaysia. But critics claim the policy is a loophole that does not substitute for increasing the supply of domestic staff and risks exacerbating health worker shortages in other countries struggling with their own shortages. The initiative comes just days after new figures showed the number of unpaid NHS posts in England rose by more than 25,000 in three months earlier this year to a record 132,139 – one in 10 of the entire workforce. This included 46,828 vacancies for nurses alone – 11.8% of the total. Brexit has significantly reduced the number of nurses coming to work in Britain from the EU. Barclay, NHS England and organizations representing health service staff are concerned that acute staff shortages are contributing to the now commonplace long patient waits for care and increasing the risk that some services will fall this winter. A Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) memo seen by the Guardian shows it will table legislation in the House of Commons on Monday to allow the bodies that regulate nurses and dentists to approve the arrival of more foreign-trained staff. The secondary legislation, which does not require MPs to vote on it, will be called the Dentists, Dental Care Professionals, Nurses, Nurse Associates and Midwives (International Registrations) Order 2022. It makes clear that the DHSC intends to simplify what it sees as unduly cumbersome procedures that limit overseas staff coming to work in the NHS. He says that “aspects of the existing statutory requirements for the registration of international dentists make it difficult and time-consuming for the General Dental Council (GDC) to make changes to its registration. Similarly, the excessive detail about the process the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) must follow to assess international applicants makes it difficult for the regulator to explore alternative routes to registration to its competency test.’ The note adds that the order “would give the GDC greater flexibility to make changes to the Overseas Registration Exam (ORE) process and explore other registration routes for international applicants, for example, recognizing training programs provided outside the UK in unilateral base”. It will also remove “defining details of the process the NMC must follow in relation to the comparability of qualifications and the assessment of international applicants, giving the NMC greater flexibility to change these processes in the future”. The number of non-EU doctors and nurses working in the NHS in England has increased since Britain voted in 2016 to leave the bloc. A DHSC source said: “These legal changes will free up regulators to carry out thousands more checks each year on overseas dentists and nurses, giving the NHS much-needed capacity. The NHS has always called in external staff when it needed them. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The changes will not lead to an abundance of less skilled staff, the source said. “We ensure that we recruit ethically and without lowering standards, and these extra checks will help achieve this. Patients should be reassured that we will bring in additional staff capable of providing care to the same high standard as the staff we already have.” But the overseas recruitment drive has sparked controversy over the ethics involved, such as the decision to recruit 100 nurses from Nepal for 15 months to work in hospitals in Hampshire. The Health Service Journal reported last week that the NHS and nursing chiefs are concerned about what they see as an over-reliance on bringing in staff from abroad. The Royal College of Nursing has warned that “our health system is already too reliant on international nursing staff and we need to ensure that recruitment is ethical”. James Buchan, senior fellow at the Foundation for Health thinktank, said the acute shortage of nurses was likely to see already historically high levels of international recruitment of members of the profession rise further. “While international recruitment [of nurses] can fill the gap in the short term, it should not distract from the need to train and retain more nurses in the UK. To attract more indigenous people into the profession, nursing must become an attractive career choice and that means improving pay, terms and conditions.’ The British Dental Association said government action to allow a greater supply of dental staff from abroad was welcome, but the new push will not end the growing shortage of NHS dentists, which has left millions of patients facing severe access to care. “Action here is long overdue, but it will not address the scale of the crisis facing this agency,” said Eddie Crouch, chairman of the BDA. “NHS dentistry is bleeding talent every day because of the dysfunctional system it relies on. Ministers must do more than try to fill a leaky bucket. They really need to fix it.”
