More than 700 nurses and midwives recruited from Nigeria by Britain’s socialized health service are under investigation for having proxies earn their qualifications for them at an African test center.
Describing the operation as “industrial-scale fraud,” former Royal College of Nursing (RCN) chief executive Peter Carter said it was “very worrying” to know there are schemes “enabling nurses to bypass these tests, or if they are using surrogates to do exams for them because the implication is that we end up in the UK with nurses who aren’t competent.”
Of the 717 nurses involved, 48 already work for the National Health Service (NHS) and face individual hearings before the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). However, the NMC is powerless to suspend any of them from their register before their hearings begin in March.
Another 669 nurses who had not yet been admitted to the register have been blocked from doing so, but most have already migrated to Britain, many with families in tow.
Rather than securing the interests of British patients and healthcare workers, trade unions appear to be taking the side of the Nigerian fraudsters, claiming they were “badly advised” and should not be deported. The GMB Union even praised the Nigerians for being “willing to uproot their lives and settle here to work in a health and social care service that is suffering a crisis in staff recruitment” — despite the fact their lack of qualifications could put patients’ lives at risk.
Around 27 percent of NHS nurses are migrants, as are 35 percent of doctors. Migrants also account for a grossly disproportionate 72 percent of doctors who are struck off the medical register for wrongdoing.
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