Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences / The Recruitment of Foreign Nurses in the UK: Exploring Shifts over the Last 15 Years

Full text (.pdf)
Issue
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2013 6 (8)
Authors
Plotnikova, Evgeniya G.
Contact information
Plotnikova, Evgeniya G.:University of Edinburgh 15A George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD;E-mail:
Keywords
recruitment; foreign nurses; ageing population; ‘greying’ of the nursing workforce
Abstract

international nurse recruitment in Britain over the last five years has been consistently low. This paper explores the factors and consequences of this decline using the historical narrative approach in public policy analysis. It starts with presenting the numbers of foreign nurses entering the nursing professional registration body in the UK – the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) over the last 15 years. It then describes changes in the foreign nurse registration process and immigration rules which took place over this period. The discussion section of this paper reveals that the active pace of the international nurse recruitment in Britain begun in the early 2000s and resulted from a group of factors including the reduction in training places for nurses in the early 1990s. The active recruitment had started to slow down from 2005 onwards. The recession after 2008 has strengthened the anti-immigration measures taken by the government and deepened the steady decline in the overall number of foreign nurses registered to practice in the UK. This paper suggests that the post-crisis budget cuts in the NHS and the subsequent decision to reduce training places for nurses today could lead to a potential need for active international nurse recruitment in future. The latter could possibly reach and even exceed the scale of active international recruitment in the early 2000s, especially considering the British context of an ageing population and the ‘greying’ of the nursing workforce.

Pages
1205-1218
Paper at repository of SibFU
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/9916

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