Kenyan nurses now have a chance to work in the United Kingdom (UK) after its Government formed a special taskforce to handle international recruitment.
UK media reports indicated that the 'International Recruitment Taskforce' was formed to ease the process of recruiting nurses from other countries including Kenya.
The new development comes even as data from the National Health Service (NHS) indicated that, as of September 1, registered nurse vacancies in England had hit 46,828.
In a speech he made in the House of Commons on Monday, September 5, new Health Secretary Steve Barclay noted that the taskforce had been formed to bolster the number of nurses recruited to work in UK.
“We have launched an International Recruitment Taskforce to boost the care workforce and address issues in capacity," he stated.
The UK Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) was also directed to simplify the procedure applied in the hiring of nurses from other countries.
According to Nursing Notes, an outlet in UK, a notice to the council advised it to remove 'prescriptive detail on the process that the NMC must follow in relation to qualification comparability and the assessment of international applicants, providing the NMC with greater flexibility to change these processes in future."
In October 2021, Kenyan Nurses suffered a blow after a majority failed the test offered by UK before offering them employment opportunities.
At the time, the Nursing Council of Kenya unveiled a training programme to equip the Kenya nurses looking to work in the UK with necessary knowledge to pass the tests.
In an initial team of nurses who sat for the test, only around 14 had passed it.
"Following the call for applications, the National Employment Authority (NEA) received and submitted 3329 applications from interested persons to the Nursing Council of Kenya for verification and shortlisting of candidates.
"Based on the evaluation criteria, 2685 candidates were shortlisted and required to submit additional requirements. The Council received a total of 2050 responses and it was established that those who had met the criteria, done and passed the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and Computer-Based Tests (CBT) were 14, and only 9 had valid certificates of both tests," a statement from the Ministry of Health read at the time.
UK has earmarked Kenya, India, Sri Lanka and Philippines among countries it will hire the nurses from.
