Supporting international colleagues

The NHS People Plan and the NHS Long Term Plan described the ethical recruitment of internationally educated nurses (IENs) as an important part of the workforce supply strategy of NHS organisations for the next 10 years (NHS England/NHS Improvement, 2019; 2020).

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2022) reported that, overall, the number of nursing professionals on the register increased by more than 13 000 between April and September 2022 to a record 771 445. This growth in registered nurses, midwives and nursing associates was driven largely by nurses trained outside the UK.

Having recently submitted a bid to support further recruitment of IENs (the recruitment of IENs continues to be our largest viable pipeline of nurses to join the sector at this time), I have been reviewing our current position. I wanted to look at the overall impact of this increase in IENs and what we need to do to ensure that this strategy remains both a recruitment and a retention success.