Health and care employers have been urged to follow ethical recruitment guidelines after it emerged that more than 2,000 nurses have come to work in the UK from so-called red list recruitment countries. New figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) show that a record 771,445 nurses and midwives are now registered with the regulator – an increase of 13,144 between April and September.
The NMC said the growth in the number of professionals on the register is partly being driven by the number of nurses who trained overseas. It said that 11,496 international professionals joined the NMC register for the first time between April and September and that most of these nurses and midwives trained in India, the Philippines, Nigeria and Ghana.
But Nigeria and Ghana are on a so-called "red list" where active recruitment is banned so as not to exacerbate domestic health workforce shortages. The Latest NMC report shows that 1,670 nurses and midwives who trained in Nigeria joined the UK register in the six months to September – a rise of 25% from the same time frame in 2021.
