Overseas recruitment

The NHS People Plan for 2020/21 made several commitments to international recruitment (NHS England/NHS Improvement and Health Education England, 2020: 43). The first of these involved building local hubs for recruitment, recognising the opportunities to recruit at a system level, promising incentives would be available to support these ‘hub’ models. There was a stated aim to build on existing and create new international partnerships for ethical recruitment to increase capacity and support. There was a plan for a new English language training programme based on value-for-money high-quality programmes, including new online modules. NHS England and NHS Improvement would work with the government to establish a new international marketing campaign, to promote the NHS as an employer of choice for international health workers, and the Health and Care visa was launched in August 2020 to make it quicker and cheaper for registered health staff to come from overseas to work in the NHS, and the social care sector.