Thousands of foreign nurses will no longer have to do any work experience in the UK before treating patients here.
In a hugely controversial move, the nursing regulator is to scrap its requirement to do three months of supervised work placements in Britain.
Instead, staff from outside the EU will simply have to take an online multiple choice test and exam.
One senior NHS official, who works at a major hospital trust in the North of England, said they were concerned that the lack of checks would “put patients at risk”.
In a dramatic twist, when approached by the Daily Mirror, the Nursing and Midwifery Council asked us not to run the story until the end of September.
It said this would give the regulator time to inform “stakeholders” about the changes and prepare arrangements to make a formal announcement.
But at 5pm today, the NMC emailed our reporter to say it was bringing “forward the announcement to tomorrow”.
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thousands-foreign-nurses-no-longer-4111614
Filed under: Uncategorized, foreign nurses, NHS, patients at risk
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