- Conference
- 2016 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 24 September 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Our group has been campaigning for the last three years to challenge the English criteria demanded by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to allow overseas nurses to register. We have brought this motion to our own Regional Council and to Black Members Conference in previous years. Unfortunately, the criteria still remain: overseas nurses must pass the mark of 7 in each and all of the categories of the International English Language Test System (IELTS) to be able to practice in the UK.
Many Black Migrant Workers are still affected by this rule and prevented from working, despite the shortage of nurses that cripples our health sector.
The NMC launched a consultation over summer 2015 to impose an English Criteria for European nurses. This is a welcomed development in the sense that it will create a more secure environment for both staff and patients, and that it will help create a more consistent and fair system between European and non European staff.
However… this should be an opportunity to apply a more fitting English test to all staff, rather than further extend a system that has been criticised time and time again.
The IELTS exam is not the most appropriate English exam for nurses. A test that would focus more on topics relevant to their professional requirement (such as the Australian Occupational English Test – OET) would be a lot more suitable. The level required at the current IELTS exam is too high, too strict, too expensive and too arbitrary.
Conference calls on the National Black Members Committee to continue to work with other relevant structures of UNISON to put pressure on the NMC to revisit these criteria and to create consistent requirements to standardise the level of training and English expected of all nurses.