The Ministry of Health is making preparations to send a second batch of nurses to the United Kingdom(UK) under the Kenya-UK Bilateral Agreement for Collaboration on Healthcare Workforce.
During a consultation with officials from the Ministry of Health and British High Commission, Principal Secretary State Department for Public Health and Professional Standards, Mary Muthoni Muriuki, noted progress is being made in the development of recruitment guidelines for nurses to streamline the preparation and recruitment process.
The first batch of nurses left Kenya for the UK in June last year after the UK and Kenya governments signed a bilateral agreement in July 2021 on health workforce collaboration.
Kenya is expected to send at least 20,000 nurses to the UK in three years in an agreement inked between the two countries when the then President Uhuru Kenyatta visited UK in July 2021.
Kenya’s first batch of nurses to the UK was marred with controversy, when only 13 of the 300 selected nurses passed English language tests required for the jobs.
The 13 nurses were attached to the Oxford University Hospital, as the agreement facilitates the deployment of qualified but unemployed Kenyan nurses to the UK National Health Service in line with UK’s code of practice on international recruitment and the WHO Global code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel.
In May 2023, Nursing Council of Kenya CEO Edna Tallam said the first batch of nurses in the UK was doing well, adding reports received from UK show that the caregivers had so far been taken through induction and they are ‘happy’.
“The reports which I have received say that they are onboarded very well, they are happy; they have been taken through the induction processes and they are a team and a community,” she said.
Thanks, this is a good progresS, do you want retired but able Nurses too ?