UK Government Stops Recruitment Of Nigerian Doctors And Nurses, 46 Other Countries

The United Kingdom has introduced a new policy in a bid to restrict the recruitment of health and social care workers from Nigeria and 46 other countries.

This was contained in the revised Code of Practice (CoP) released by the UK Department of Health and Social Care. The policy does not, however, bar Nigerian doctors from migrating to the UK.

The revised CoP is aimed at all health or social care organisations or recruitment agencies undertaking international recruitment.

The updated code of practice, which will help to meet UK’s target of delivering 50,000 more nurses by 2024, is expected to affect 47 countries especially Nigeria, which has the third largest number of migrant doctors in the UK.

The list also showed that almost all the countries affected are in Africa.

They include: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Guinea-Bissau and Haiti.

Some others affected include: Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo Uganda, Vanuatu and Yemen.

This is according to a statement by the UK government titled, ‘UK to strengthen its ethical approach to the international recruitment of health and care workers’ on February 25, 2021.

The UK government said the new policy was in line with the World Health Organisation’s recommendation.

“The UK has updated its code of practice for the international recruitment of health and social care staff to align with the World Health Organization (WHO), widening the global market from which the UK can ethically recruit.

“This will provide increasing numbers of international staff with the opportunity to come and work in the UK’s health and social care sectors to deliver world-class care.”

“To align with the WHO, the new code refers to the WHO Health Workforce Support and safeguard List, 2020 of 47 countries where active recruitment can’t be undertaken.

“This replaces the previous UK-held list of 152 countries, and removes confusion which can arise from the UK holding a separate list of countries. UK recruiters are not permitted to actively recruit from these countries unless there is a government to government agreement in place for managed recruitment,” the statement partly reads.

The CoP according to UK, sets out how the UK can work collaboratively with governments from around the world, forming partnerships to benefit health and social care workers, their country of origin and the UK.

KanyiDaily had reported how the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) stopped 58 doctors from travelling to the United Kingdom at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.