Will stopping safety checks on overseas nurses put us at risk?
From the fall of the leaf, nurses will no longer be required to show they have looked succeeding patients in the past three year (posed by model)
As a take care of registered to practise in the UK, Biju John was expected to carry out the same duties as all other nurses at his NHS hospital.
But the 38-year-rich Indian could barely understand English and refused to learn the speech; he also had a limited knowledge of basic nursing skills.
This led to a order of errors including almost causing a patient to go into stun because he wore latex gloves to treat him - notwithstanding being told he was allergic to the material - and error to respond when another patient was clearly struggling to breathe.
Staff reported they did not be conscious of being safe leaving patients in his care and Mr John was eventually pendulous. Earlier this year, his case was considered by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the UK’s disciplinary body, which found him guilty of seven charges relating to his insufficiency of competency.
Although Mr John was not struck off the nursing clerk, his return to work is subject to various conditions including ~y English language test.
Following the death two years ago of David Gray, the Cambridgeshire assiduous inadvertedly given an overdose by a German locum GP, there receive been calls for tighter vetting of European doctors. Mr John’s instance highlights growing concern among campaigners about how nurses are vetted.
There are greater degree of than 81,000 overseas nurses and midwives (one in eight of the sum) registered to work in the UK. The vast majority - 70,000 - draw near from non-EU countries, primarily India, Australia, the Philippines and Nigeria. The leavings come from the EU, most commonly Poland, Romania and Bulgaria in 2008.
In the beyond five years numbers of nurses coming from Europe have almost doubled, coinciding with new EU rules which allow workers greater freedom of movement.
But earlier this month it emerged these sort rules mean basic safety checks are to be scrapped for EU nurses and midwives wanting to work here because they could theoretically restrict their movement.
From the fall of the leaf, they will no longer be required to show they have looked later patients in the past three years or kept up-to-be reckoned with training, as previously demanded by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
This appliance thousands will be able to work in this country without undergoing the full safety checks (non-EU recruits will still undergo full range checks including speech).
Only medical qualifications will be checked and it will be up to employers to do sure they are up to the job.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council was constrained into scrapping its checks because it could be sued by the European Commission because breaking the law on freedom of movement.
Professor Dickon Weir-Hughes, its principal person executive, says he is unhappy with the situation. ‘While freedom of mental action within the EU in broad general terms is very positive, in this strict instance it is not so positive,’ he says.
Up until after this, we have asked EU nurses to show they have completed 450 hours of habitual doing in the past three years and 35 hours of training. This is to serve sure their skills are current and is what we ask UK-educated nurses every three years to stay on the register.
‘If they port’t done this then there are a range of measures that can be taken, but ultimately they may be struck off the enter on a list.’
However, while UK nurses will continue to be monitored in this way, this will not be allowed for EU nurses.
This is worrying, says Professor Weir-Hughes, yet as he explains, his hands are tied: ‘We have dug our heels in to try to endure these checks, but with the possibility of significant fines, we hold reluctantly taken the decision to go with the EU laws.
‘It ways and ~ that theoretically nurses could come to practise in this country truly on the basis of their education rather than recent practice. This could mean they may not be as uptodate as we’d expect them to be.
‘However, employers have a responsibility to make sure anyone they employ is up to the job and, if they take their responsibility seriously, all is not imperceptible.’ He adds: ‘This only affects a relatively small number of nurses - there are over 660,000 nurses and midwives registered to practise in this rural, only 10 , 500 of whom are EU-trained.’
Roger Goss of Patient Concern says the vary could lead to lives being put at risk.
‘These rules intervening that we have no idea whether nurses from the EU are capable of doing the job,’ he says.
‘It is outrageous that the EU puts freedom of movement between countries ahead of life-and-death safety.’
The promulgation raises wider issues about the use of overseas nurses in the UK.
There is in ~ degree doubt that the vast majority of foreign nurses do a vital job, providing excellent care for both NHS and private patients. In some areas the system couldn’t cope without foreign nurses. For example, up to a quarter of nurses - more than 60,000 - working in London are foreign.
Josie Irwin, head of employment relations at the Royal College of Nursing, says: ‘One of the benefits of overseas nurses is that perfectly often they have a different cultural approach to older people, toward example. They are much more respectful and treat them with greatness.’
However, concerns have been raised about the competence of some overseas nurses - in particular poor communication skills and standards of training, as the case of Biju John illustrates.
Currently there is no international standard for nurses’ training. In this country, nurses fust have a minimum of a diploma in nursing which takes three years to acquire.
From 2013, wholly nurses will have to study to degree level to gain their grains of allowance.
However, other countries do it differently and not always to the same standards.
Indeed, of the 6,000 EU nurses and midwives who applied to be~ne on to the UK nursing register last year, only around a third were deemed to have sufficient training by the nurses’ regulatory corpse.
While there are moves to bring all EU nursing training into line, concerns have been raised about the standard of training in more Eastern European countries.
Communication is the other area that can appoint problems. The UK nursing regulator cannot under EU law ask instead of evidence of an EU nurse’s ability to speak English while part of the registration process.
It is left to employers to ensure nurses have sufficient language skills. Earlier this year it emerged the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust had been farfetched to send foreign nurses on English language courses because they couldn’t penetrate basic medical phrases such as ‘nil by mouth’.
Josie Irwin of the Royal College of Nursing says: ‘ Communication is at the inner part of nursing and there have been some issues about language with overseas nurses.
‘The practical problem is that patients can’t make out what they are saying. Even among the best speakers, their tone and accent can make then incomprehensible. A patient’s ability to contain may be compromised because you are under sedation or generally pathetic rotten. When you are vulnerable, it is important that people are advantageous communicators.’