We pay to help foreign nurses pass English test
TAxPAyERS’ money is being used to help foreign nurses pass English language tests in order to land jobs with the NHS.
Recruits are being given up to £400 towards the cost of being trained to sit crucial exams which test their English skills.
It is just one incentive being given to foreign nurses by hospitals desperate to overcome a staffing crisis in the NHS.
Also on offer are free return flights from their home country, £293 to cover the cost of registering with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and a further £428 for a recruit’s ‘initial’ UK visa, as well as subsidised accommodation for a specified period.
NHS trusts are also picking up the £992 bill for sitting a key exam which is part of the process of registering with the NMC.
A senior NHS official told the Mail that ‘the market for recruitment of foreign nurses is very competitive’.
The website of a firm called Chesham Recruitment, based in the Philippines, is advertising Skype interviews for ‘life- changing, permanent’ nursing jobs at two NHS trusts. It says candidates for jobs at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust must be registered general nurses who have completed a four- year diploma course and have at least 18 months of recent post-qualification acute care experience.
To support applicants, the firm said: ‘The Trust will reimburse up to £400 towards the cost of acquiring the mandatory International English Language Testing System test scores, including training/ review costs, if any, to candidates who are successfully deployed.’
Meanwhile, inducements to work for the Cambridge University Hospitals Trust include the cost of a UK visa and return flights from Manila – even if the candidate is not successful in achieving NMC registration. It adds: ‘The Trust will provide the first month’s accommodation on site, free ... plus free meals on the day of arrival and a cash advance of £500 paid to you on the day of your arrival, which will be paid back from your salary over a six-month period.’
They will also be entitled to ‘access to the Trust’s Deposit Loan Scheme, which offers new employees the opportunity to borrow up to £3,000 to support their initial relocation off- site’. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said: ‘This is a positive step to recruit and retain staff who deliver high quality, safe care for our patients. We, like other Trusts, regularly recruit internationally to help fill vacant posts and reduce the use of temporary nursing staff which can be very expensive.’
A Cambridge University Hospitals spokesman said: ‘The current vacancy rate for registered nurses is 12.8 per cent, but there is a strong pipeline of nurses joining the Trust. This month 44 nurses will be joining, of which 33 will be international. This financial year, 2018/19, we are looking to recruit 550 nurses, of which 306 will be international.’
The pledge to pick up the bill for nurses to qualify under the IELTS comes after recent attempts to recruit hundreds of nurses from the Philippines were unsuccessful because of language problems.
A hospital in the Midlands spent £19,000 on a trip to the country to interview 115 nurses but filled just three roles. According to reports, 108 candidates were turned away after failing to pass an English language test – prompting council chiefs to describe the journey by the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust as ‘a total waste’.