By Muhammad Amaan with agency report
The Nursing and Midwifery Council of the United Kingdom has disclosed that no fewer than 15,000 nurses and midwives from Nigeria are working in the UK.
It noted that a quarter of nurses and midwives working in the UK were recruited abroad.
According to Daily Mail, foreign-trained members of the workforce now numbered 200,000, representing 23.8 per cent of the register.
Of the 200,000 foreign-trained workforce, 68,000 are from India, 50,000 trained in the Philippines and 15,000 are from Nigeria.
In February reported the Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, Faruk Abubakar, statement that over 15,000 nurses and midwives left the country in 2023.
Abubakar further noted that 42,000 nurses left the country in the last three years, stating the number kept increasing every year.
In 2022, the President of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, Michael Nnachi, said over 57,000 nurses have left Nigeria for greener pastures abroad from 2017 to 2022.
He noted that the situation had left the country with fewer nurses, stating that one nurse now attends to about 1,660 patients.
Unfavourable working conditions, poor remuneration and insecurity were factors fuelling the exodus of medical practitioners out of the country.
Although the UK appears to be the favourite destination of many migrating health workers, countries such as Canada, Australia, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia are other choice countries.
Continuing, Daily Mail reports the worry of health leaders in the UK, who warned that the UK workforce was ‘increasingly inexperienced’ with heavy reliance on candidates from overseas.
“It comes as recent figures revealed net migration to Britain hit a record 2.2 million over the past three years – an addition to the country almost double the size of Birmingham.
“Top nurses have warned that planned government reforms for the health service ‘stand no chance’ if issues with recruitment and retention are not addressed,” it said.
Further findings by the NMC also revealed that while there were 841,367 nurses and midwives on the register, the number of those leaving the profession had risen.
The figures also showed that of the 14,780 UK-educated professionals who joined the register between April and September, a fall of 1.8 per cent was recorded compared to the previous six months.
The NMC also said international recruitment ‘could be starting to slow’.
Commenting on the issue, the interim Executive Director of Strategy and Insight at the NMC, Kuljit Dhillon, said that international recruitment had been a pillar of workforce growth in recent years.
“Nursing and midwifery are among the UK’s most trusted professions, so as we head into another tough winter, we hope there is small comfort in the growth of our register to a record 841,000.
“At the same time, there are notes of caution in our data around international recruitment, which has been a pillar of workforce growth in recent years.
“We’ve seen a fall in internationally educated joiners and an even higher proportional rise in leavers, although it’s important to view leavers’ data through the lens of a growing register,” Dhillon said.
However, the general secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing, Professor Nicola Ranger, called the figures ‘bad news for patients.’
‘Nurse recruitment is slowing; the number of new starters is falling and we are witnessing a devastating increase in people leaving within five years of joining. At a time of widespread vacancies, these trends are incredibly worrying for our NHS and the people that rely on its care,” she said.
UK’s Health minister, Wes Streeting, announced plans to ban the NHS from hiring agency workers to plug a shortfall in nurse numbers.
“Across health and care services, international recruitment was utilised to plug rota gaps, but we are now watching as thousands of overseas staff choose to go elsewhere.
“This comes as the number of student nurses in the UK dropped considerably again this year, showing worse years seem to be ahead.
“As demand for care soars, ministers across the UK need to recognise this as a perfect storm for patient safety and take action to improve recruitment and retention.
“Working for low pay, in understaffed, under-resourced services takes its toll with burnout pushing highly-trained nursing staff out the door,” Streeting noted.
