Trust doesn’t recruit staff from ‘red list’ countries with medical labour shortages

Ms. Hargan said the Western Trust had ‘very clear arrangements’ regarding recruitment from countries with a reported low density of medical staff and which are featured on the World Health Organisation (WHO) list.

Professor Hugh McKenna, a non-Executive Director of the Western Trust, raised the matter at the health authority’s January board meeting.

"Last year the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) [reported that] 92 per cent of all new registers were from overseas and 40 of them were from WHO so-called red list countries who we are not supposed to recruit from ethically,” he remarked.

“When recruiting staff from overseas we have to be very careful where we get them from,” he added.

Ms. Hargan said she agreed ‘100 per cent’.

“We will not recruit from ‘red list’ countries. We have very clear arrangements. Once that list if updated our international recruitment arrangements are such that we do not recruit from those countries. I can give an absolute assurance on that.

"I don't know the percentages off hand in terms of our registrations in the Trust in terms of international nurses and nurses from this jurisdiction but they are not of that level,” said Ms. Hargan.

The human resources managed pointed to the large numbers of recruits the Western Trust secures from Ulster University and Queen's.

The World Health Organisation Health (WHO) Workforce Support and Safeguard List is regularly updated and includes low and middle income countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Caribbean and Pacific.

The NMC’s latest report for April-September 2023 showed ‘an increase in the number of people joining the register in NI from ‘red list’ countries where active recruitment isn’t permitted, particularly from Ghana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe’.

The report stated: “Together, professionals from these countries represent 22.7 percent of all international joiners in NI during the six months to September.”

Meanwhile, at the Trust’s board meeting last Thursday, Prof. McKenna suggested more needed to be done to retain staff within the Trust.

"The NHS in 2023 is all about recruitment and very little about retention. One question is, are we doing anything special about retaining staff, as well as recruiting?” he asked.Ms. Hargan said a local action plan had been put in place in relation to the retention of the nursery and midwifery workforce and that flexibility was something that was being looked at.

Prof. McKenna likened recruiting without focusing on retention to ‘putting on all the taps but taking out the stoppers’.

"There is no point recruiting a thousand staff if you don't retain them,” he said.

Ms. Hargan said: “There is something about the culture and engagement in the organisation as a whole.

"We believe the Western Trust is a great place to work and we want to create a culture and environment where staff want to come and work here and stay here,” she said.

£7.9m spike in locum spend in Western Trust during COVID-19