Best Health InsuranceThe Nursing and Midwifery Council has been obliged to scrap skills tests for EU nurses applying to work in Britain after having been told that under European law they could be considered ‘discriminatory’.
Up until now the Nursing and Midwifery Council have been able to control who is employed by our national health service by insisting that new recruits must have worked a minimum of 450 hours in the last 3 years or failing this, must attend a refresher course to verify their skills.
Now, in order to comply with European law, the only requirement for European nurses coming to work in Britain is that they hold a diploma from their respective country stating that they are qualified.
Despite more than 40,000 nurses from the European Union (including former Soviet Bloc countries) applying to work in Britain over the past five years, it is interesting to note that only 270 were approved, with the others failing to complete the course.
More worrying yet – those that did not successfully complete the recruitment process were deterred both by its cost and difficulty.
Whilst, in theory all EU countries should be bound by the same regulations, key Western players, France and Germany have so far declined to open their borders to most Eastern European immigrants and therefore do not face the same restrictions as the UK.
Following this change to regulation, it is expected that Britain will now face an influx of nurses from the enlarged European Union. This is without doubt a daunting prospect for NHS patients who, in essence, put their lives in the hands of these nurses.
(The Guardian)
