This is a guest post from a nursing recruitment agency who regularly read our blog.
With huge staffing shortages in UK hospitals, more and more healthcare centres are looking to other countries to provide the nurses we desperately need. Hiring from overseas can mean both parties get what they want out of the deal, but that’s not to say that recruiting nurses from foreign countries is without its challenges.
The Language Barrier
One of the primary challenges of recruiting nursing staff from overseas can quite simply be the language barrier. Unless nurses are coming from a country that speaks English natively, it’s possible that staff just won’t be able to communicate well enough to perform their jobs. In an environment where communication is vital, this is obviously a huge problem. The only solution to the language barrier is providing new nurses with language classes, which adds to the expense of hiring.
Work Permission
Depending on where nurses are being recruited from, getting permission for them to work and reside in the UK can be another challenge. The laws for immigration into the EU and then into the UK itself are tough and complicated, and getting the correct paperwork is time consuming. Not only that, but there’s no guarantee that permission will be granted, which can leave the nurse being deported back home.
Education Differences
Standards of nursing education vary widely around the world. Just because someone is qualified as a nurse in their home country doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the equivalent of a British nurse. This is a tough challenge to overcome unless you know that nursing education standards in the potential nurse’s home country are the same as they are in the UK. Of course, the opposite situation can also happen — with overseas nurses being far more qualified than UK nurses.
Cultural Differences
Cultural differences are a touchy subject. These can range from extremely important issues, such as female nurses being uncomfortable around male patients, or even forbidden from undressing them due to cultural reasons, to more personal issues such as nurses simply not being happy. There is little that can be done about cultural differences, other than to be understanding and to ensure that there will be no major impediments to an overseas nurse doing her job.
Integration
Whether or not integration becomes a challenge depends very much on the atmosphere of the workplace. Whether it’s true or not, there is a feeling amongst some native nurses that overseas nurses are taking jobs, lowering the pay average, are underqualified, and basically not deserving of work in the UK. This can lead to problems integrating an overseas nurse into the workplace if not carefully handled. Fortunately, in many cases native nurses are happy to have the help that they desperately need, and where that help comes from isn’t really an issue.
The best of nursing agencies such as HCL Nursing has hundreds of vacancies yet there are still many unfilled vacancies because staffs with appropriate skills are in short supply. Recruiting nurses from overseas may be the solution to the UK’s hospital staffing shortages. But it must be remembered that this isn’t a magic solution, there are still going to be challenges that need to be met and overcome when hiring nurses from other countries.
