Malcolm Conlan, Pinoy At Heart : Elated With Good News For Filipino Nurses

I am Really pleased to hear that the Government have been forced to do a U-Turn over their ridiculous immigration policy of deportation of nurses from outside the EU who earned less than £35,000 within 6 years. I was asked to write a report some months ago to reassure Filipino nurses back home that this quite ludicrous policy would never work. As I said at the time, the British public would simply not allow hard working NHS nurses to be deported, especially as theirs is such life saving essential work Yes I do support the idea of more training for nurses from the UK, I believe that all study fees, accommodation and expenses should be free for all students studying to gain a qualification in the healthcare sector. Until this happens, we will always need to recruit from overseas. 

Thank goodness the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) fought for nurses here and thanks also to everyone else who highlighted this absurd idea by the Government. 

As far as I understand nursing is to be added to the list of skills shortage in the UK on a temporary basis until more research is done. This is of course fantastic news for all our nurses in the Philippines who had visas refused as we had reached our quota. This is a victory for common sense. Great Britain deserves the very best skilled workers from around the world, including nurses and this U-Turn by the Government now enables this. 

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