United Kingdom has not imposed a ban on Filipino nurses despite the issuance of a new hiring policy that will take effect on Aug. 14, 2006, the Department of Labor and Employment clarified in a statement yesterday.

The London Philippine Overseas Labor Office said in a report to Secretary Arturo Brion that, under the new policy, UK employers intending to recruit nurses from abroad are first required to advertise in the UK their job vacancies particularly for "General Nurses," based on the UK's recent removal of the said category from its Shortage Occupation List. The UK employers, (including) both the National Health Service or independent health providers, would have to satisfy first this resident labor market test before they can recruit nurses from abroad, Labor Attache Jainal Rasul said in the report, the statement said.

Brion said that a ban against Filipino nurses in the UK is non-existent first and foremost as the Filipino nurses performing a vital role in its health care system have helped, directly or indirectly, in the removal of the General Nurses from that country's current Shortage Occupation List. He added in the statement that UK health minister, Lord Warner, earlier said the change will make no difference to (foreign) nurses currently working in the UK.

Despite the removal of the General Nurses from the shortage list, the UK has excluded the Specialist Nurses category from the new requirement imposed.

The Specialist category includes those nurses specialized in Audiology, Sleep/Respiratory Physiology, Neurophysiology, Cardiac Physiology, Operating Theater Nursing, Clinical Radiology, Pathology, and Critical Care.

Rasul, in his report, quoted the projection of the UK's Royal College of Nursing that some 150,000 UK nurses are due to retire in the next five to 10 years, and foreign nurses are expected to continue to complement the UK's own nursing workforce into the future, the DOLE statement added.*

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