More must be done to recognise the prior experience of international nurses coming to work in the NHS, with senior staff offered opportunities to go straight into leadership positions, a deputy chief nursing officer for England has urged.
Speaking during the Queen’s Nursing Institutes annual conference this week, Duncan Burton said it should not be the case that nurses joining the NHS from overseas are automatically placed in band 5 roles.
“We have to live up to the expectations of those nurses”
Duncan Burton
He highlighted the “volume of prior experience nurses from around the world have” and stressed that “these are not, in the main, newly qualified nurses”.
“I was talking to a nurse who had set up a children’s hospital in their country of origin, but we need to do more to recognise that experience,” he told the conference.
He added: “How do we make sure we recognise that experience in terms of how we recruit people in and think about people moving and progressing rapidly, or recruit into leadership positions, for example, so that not everybody is recruited in necessarily as a band 5?”
The deputy CNO recalled meeting with some nurses who had come to England from India last year who told him the reason they had chosen to come and work for the NHS was “because of the development opportunities that it offers”.
“We have to live up to the expectations of those nurses,” said Mr Burton.
The comments came as Mr Burton was providing an update on NHS England’s international recruitment programme, which is part of the government’s commitment to deliver an additional 50,000 nurses by 2025.
The scheme, which is running in collaboration with the government, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the QNI among others, is exploring how best international nurses can be supported as they join the NHS.
As well as recognition of prior experience, Mr Burton said the work was also focusing on access to good accommodation for these nurses, pastoral care and support, and ensuring existing teams are well prepared to welcome international nurses.
