Nurses in the thousands affected by UK’s policy on work load

Hundreds of Filipino student nurses taking short-term courses in the United Kingdom will be affected by the UK’s more stringent policy of cutting down the work load and training hours of foreign students.

The new rule, which also prohibits their dependents the right to work, will make it difficult for them to cope with living expenses like food, rent, and taxes with the high standard of living in the UK, said recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani.

More than 10,000 healthcare workers, majority of them nurses, entered the UK from 2007 to 2009.

Fifty percent of those who took advantage of the study and work plan offered by various consultancies in the Philippines enrolled only in certificate courses lasting for six months to one year.

The new UK regulation will take effect on March 3.

Geslani said majority of the Filipino healthcare workers currently taking awards, certification and diploma courses officially known as National Vocational Qualifications in learning institutions are allowed to work for up to 20 hours per week. But with the new law, their working hours will be reduced to 10 per week.

NVQs are vocational awards in the UK that allows Filipino students in the health and care-giving sector, to work in care homes or hospitals and earn while studying. It is achieved through assessment and training based on an individual’s qualification to perform a job.

In a bid to regulate the entry of foreign workers in the UK, the British government will be abolishing the NVQ and replace it with another study program for qualified foreigners.

Foreign students, under the new law, will now be required to take an English proficiency test from their own country before they can study in the UK.

“Many of these nurses will be forced to return to the Philippines if they cannot shift to higher education courses like degree programs in universities,” Geslani said. –Michaela P. del Callar, Daily Tribune