Migrant doctors and nurses in the UK

Making it to the Registers: Documenting Migrant Carers’ Experiences of Registration and Fitness to Practise aims to better understand the experiences of migrant healthcare workers with professional regulation.

Our research revealed many current challenges faced by immigrant and refugee healthcare workers experience when they move to the UK.

These include:  

• Collecting the extensive paperwork required to obtain registration with the relevant statutory regulator; these problems are exacerbated for individuals who have fled violence or persecution and may have lost their documents and certificates or whose documents and certificates may have been destroyed during conflict;
• Facing differentiated documentary requirements depending on country of training, with healthcare professionals trained in the European Union required to meet slightly less onerous requirements, thereby often resulting in more challenging experiences for healthcare professionals from the global south; 
• Passing a series of expensive English language, clinical knowledge, and skills examinations to be able to register with the relevant statutory regulator; 
• Ensuring that the examinations are passed in a specific order and within a particular time period (so, for instance, there is no leeway provided for pregnancy, meaning that access to registration is impacted by gender);  
• Meeting immigration requirements that often limit who can work and for how long, leading to long periods of time during which migrant healthcare workers are unable to work and may result in de-skilling;  
• Facing the non-recognition or under-recognition of the training, qualifications, experience, and skills they have accumulated overseas, and experiencing the resulting devaluation of their professional identity, even as their labour is needed to run the healthcare system; and 
• Enduring individual and systemic forms of racism during the registration process and in the workplace.