Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by the Earl of Courtown on 12 June (HL Deb, col 1575), from which countries it would not be acceptable for the NHS to recruit nurses and doctors.

The United Kingdom adheres to the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. The UK Government has developed a list of developing countries, based on economic status and the availability of healthcare professionals that should not be targeted for recruitment without Government-to-Government agreement.

The list is based upon the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee list of aid recipients and can be found in the attached table, due to the size of the data.

There are three important exceptions to this list. First, there is Memorandum of Understanding between the UK and Philippine Governments to enable the UK to recruit registered nurses and other healthcare professionals that are regulated by appropriate professional bodies in both countries. Second, the inclusion of India on this list is in relation to four states: Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. These states currently receive assistance from the Department for International Development. Finally, the Chinese Government has requested that China is removed from this list but that no recruitment should take place in small rural areas.

Specific agreements also exist for exchange programmes, or medical training initiatives, which enable health care professionals to come to the UK on a temporary basis to learn new skills before returning to their home country. For example, the Government announced such a scheme in partnership with the Jamaican Government in April this year.