UK Needs Filipino Nurses

Due to the ageing nursing workforce and the shrinking pool of registered nurses in the United Kingdom (UK), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said that there is a need of more than 1, 000 Filipino nurses there.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said that the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in the UK received and verified eight job orders from various Foreign Placement Agencies (FPAs).

She said that two of the FPAs, the Search Recruitment Limited and Medicare Staffing Limited, will deploy 180 and 60 nurses to hospitals considered National Health Service (NHS) Trusts, respectively.

There are also four FPAs that will deploy 314 Filipino nurses to some private care homes in the UK, including the Rushcliffe Care Group, Gold Care Homes Limited, Bond Care Limited, and Four Seasons.

“There was an increase of job orders for Filipino nurses by 38 percent compared to last year’s, with 402 job orders,” Baldoz said.

The Drake International, which is also an FPA submitted recruitment requirements to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and reported 487 job orders of Filipino nurses for its five clients.

Citing the 2014 hiring cap of 20, 700 imposed by the UK for Filipino nurses, Baldoz said that they “have not reached that cap yet.”

“Hence, more slots are available for Filipino nurses, considering the availability of UK’s own local pool of workers, as well as those coming from the European Union. The United Kingdom’s labor market remains a qualitative and quantitative selective market for migrant workers,” she said.

POLO-UK Labor Attache Joan Lavilla cited reports and studies by the UK’s Center for Workforce Intelligence and the Royal College of Nursing, saying that 24 percent of registered nurses are set to retire in the next five years.

On the other hand, the POLO office in UK reported a verified number of employment documents for seafarers for UK shipping companies and the Scottish fishing industry.

“British territories also hired 10 auditors and accountants for the Channel Islands, seven customer service assistants and one nanny in the Falkland Islands, all of which are Filipino workers,” Baldoz added.

“With this good news, I wish to warn our nurses desiring to work in the UK to follow the legal stream—processes—of overseas employment, through the POEA—to avoid getting conned by illegal recruiters,” she said.

(Source: Robertzon F. Ramirez, The Manila Times)