Nurses from abroad still lured to UK despite ban

Britain is continuing to loot the poorest nations of the world of their skilled medical staff to shore up the NHS in defiance of a government ban on the practice imposed in 2001.

Figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) released today show that 3,472 nurses from countries on the "banned" list were registered in the UK last year – 900 fewer than last year but almost one third more than the 2,638 who were recruited from developing countries two years ago, when the ban came into force.

The NMC said last year's drop in the numbers could be a temporary blip because all overseas applicants now have to complete up to six months of supervised practice before they can register. "It is quite possible there will be a boost in overseas registrations this year as applicants finish their adaptation and successfully register," the council said.

NHS trusts are still critically short of the nurses they need to hit government targets to treat more patients and cut waiting lists. Although 37,000 more nurses have been recruited by the NHS since 1997, there are still shortages. Overseas recruitment is one way to fill the gap and NHS trusts are using private recruitment agencies to get round the ban.

Most of the "banned" nurses are from Africa, where recruitment was 41 per cent higher last year than in 2000-01. The biggest source is South Africa, which supplied 1,480 nurses to Britain in 2002-03. Over the past five years, Britain has taken 6,739 nurses from South Africa.

Nelson Mandela appealed to Britain in 1997 to stop poaching South African doctors and nurses. Ministers responded by urging NHS trusts to cease actively recruiting in South Africa but did not formally ban the practice until 1999. That ban included the West Indies, which had lodged similar protests.

In 2001, the Government extended the ban to all developing countries, except for the Philippines and parts of India which had indicated that they would allow Britain to recruit. It also published a code of practice for the private recruitment agencies whose aim is "to promote the best possible standards and discourage any inappropriate practices which could harm other country's healthcare systems". Agencies are invited to sign the code of practice and provide two references from NHS trusts confirming that they are observing it. Yesterday, 50 agencies were listed on the Department of Health's website as having signed, about half the total believed to be operating in the UK.

Almost 13,000 overseas nurses were registered in the UK last year. Over 40 per cent were from the Philippines (5,594), which trains extra nurses to work abroad and remit money home, and 14 per cent (1,833) from India. A further 804 came from the European Union.

A Health Department spokeswoman said: "We are committed to the ethical recruitment of staff from abroad. We do not target developing countries for recruitment unless we have an agreement to do so."

* More evidence of the damaging impact of the "target culture" on the NHS came with the disclosure yesterday that NHS trusts cancelled operations to free beds and hired extra staff to get waiting times in accident and emergency down below four hours during one week in March when they were being assessed. A document leaked to The Observer showed that the proportion of patients seen within the target four hours at 29 hospitals rose to 93.7 per cent in the crucial week but then fell back.