Ealing PCT ... Transferring skills to the NHS
"We saw the benefit of creating a very simple programme to increase awareness of what help there is." Stephen James, Head of Partnerships and Diversity, Ealing PCT.
Links being forged at the Southall Healthy Living Initiative Opportunities and Training Fair, an event designed to reach out to the local community, held in October this year
Fadumo Nour had eight years' experience as a nurse when she arrived in Britain from Somalia as a refugee. But it still took her two years to get the new qualifications she needed to practice nursing in the NHS. Now working as a Refugee Health-Link Worker at GPs surgeries in Ealing, she says: "It was a very hard process to get registered in this country. I wrote hundreds of letters to hospitals and nursing schools all over the country, but I got there in the end."
Fadumo is exactly the sort of person that a new programme launched by Ealing Primary Care Trust hopes to help.
The Signposts for Overseas Qualified Health Professionals (OQHPs) project aims to raise awareness amongst staff and managers at the Trust about the help available for those who arrive in the UK with qualifications from abroad. There are no comprehensive figures on the numbers of refugees and asylum seekers who have medical qualifications, but studies by bodies including the Royal College of Nursing estimate that there are several thousand refugee nurses living in the UK, while more than 800 qualified doctors are registered with the Refugee Council alone.
Raising Awareness
"We are a major employer in Ealing and staff often come across qualified professionals from abroad, either through work or their personal lives," says Stephen James, Head of Partnerships and Diversity. "The problem is that although there are a lot of resources out there, there is only patchy awareness of them. People get the information they need eventually, but it might take several phone calls, which can be frustrating. We wanted to create shortcuts. We saw the benefit of creating a very simple programme to increase awareness of what help there is."
The work was instigated at the request of both staff, local refugee and community groups with whom the Trust has contact through a range of forums.
Local groups reported that they had contact with OQHPs but did not always know where to direct them. They also expressed concern that those professionals who did find employment within the NHS were often under-utilised and had little chance to use their qualifications and skills.
Work on the Signpost project began in June (2004) in partnership with the NHS's Workforce Development Confederation. By early next year, the Trust hopes to have produced an information sheet clearly describing the resources accessible to OQHPs in west London, including funding for further study and opportunities to take up clinical attachments. The information sheet, which has been produced with input from refugee health professionals, will be made available to staff throughout the PCT, incorporated into staff training and inductions and posted on the internet. It will also be sent out to local ethnic minority community groups, with whom discussions on the most useful format and language will begin in December (2004).
Filling Vacancies
As well as helping to get people into work, the aim of the project is to address Ealing's severe shortage of doctors, nurses and therapists by making use of the largely untapped workforce within refugee groups - which account for around five per cent of the area's population. "The Signpost project means that we are able to recruit from the local communities and meet some of the skills gaps rather than struggle to fill vacancies," says Stephen. "In the short-term we will still need to recruit from abroad, but in the long term we might be able to avoid that." More than that, he argues, the scheme will send a positive message to the local community. "At the moment there are doctors in Ealing who are not able to practice," he says. "If we achieve some progress towards getting GPs trained who are from communities which are very largely represented here, that would be a major step forward. Not just in terms of workforce needs, but in terms of communities' faith in what we are doing. If they see people from a range of backgrounds it shows we really do welcome diversity."
For Fadumo, the project is a welcome improvement on her own experience. After fleeing Somalia's civil war and arriving in London fourteen years ago, it was an uphill struggle just to find out what she needed to do to get back into nursing.
After two years of writing hundreds of letters to hospitals and nursing colleges, she was finally accepted on a course at Barnet College of Nursing, where she completed her postgraduate basic registration, allowing her to enter nursing again.
"It was a very hard process," she says. "I started from zero but I never gave up. I was lucky because I had my diploma certificate. A lot of people are forced to flee without any of their documents, and that makes things even harder."
Fadumo has gone on to complete a masters degree in health promotion, and values her job as a refugee health-link worker, supporting practice nurses at GP surgeries in Ealing in their work with refugee patients. She says she knows at least ten people who have been unable to use their medical qualifications at all since arriving here. "This programme is very, very important," she said. "It is bad that there is a shortage of nurses when there are all these people around who are not functioning as they should. "It is also bad for the refugees. When they come here and can't work they think nobody wants them and it affects their mental wellbeing. If they could get back into work, I think that would help. If I did it, anyone can."