Telegraph- features
Surgeon halts operation
over foreign nurses' poor English
By Richard Eden
(Filed: 22/07/2002)
A surgeon at a leading hospital has said he had to stop halfway through an operation because foreign nurses could not follow his instructions. As a result, he said he has been threatened with disciplinary action for racism.
David Nunn, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals, in London, told The Telegraph that he was unable to complete the operation last week without certain instruments.
When he asked the nurses, all of whom were foreign, to find them, "I was met with a selection of bemused reactions," he said. "They were produced only when the scrub nurse de-scrubbed and went to find them herself."
Mr Dunn, 48, said his superiors had accused him of racism and threatened him with being disciplined. "But we should not allow political correctness to prevent these problems from being aired."
Half of the nurses newly registered in the year to March - 15,000 - came from overseas. Ten years ago foreign nurses accounted for only a tenth.
Mr Dunn said: "The world has been scoured for nurses to shore up the health service and to achieve arbitrary targets set by the Government.
"All are without doubt well-trained and dedicated professionals, but if medical staff cannot communicate effectively then patients' care may be put at risk."
A spokesman for Guy's and St Thomas's said the matter was being investigated. He expressed surprise that "the media has been involved before it is concluded".
He said that nurses from abroad went through an "adaptation programme" and had to pass a clinical test involving "an assessment of their written and verbal communication skills".
All hospitals offer induction courses for nurses from abroad, but these concentrate on clinical and professional competence, not on English.
A Department of Health spokesman said there were no mandatory tests for nurses' ability in English.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/07/22/nurs22.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/07/22/ixnewstop.html
BBC on line
Wednesday, 5 June, 2002, 16:46 GMT 17:46 UK
Doubts over Met's foreign recruitment plan
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens told The Times newspaper's on Tuesday: "I am asking our recruitment people to look at recruiting abroad and this would be similar to the NHS recruitment of medical staff and nurses.''
However, police officer representatives expressed scepticism at the idea and a Met spokesman on Wednesday said current laws meant there could be no plans at present to implement such recruitment.
The spokeman added that Sir John was engaging in ''blue sky thinking'' regarding the plans.
Practical experience
The recruitment could only take place if and when the Police Reform Bill became law, the spokesman said.
''We will react to circumstances if the law does change,'' he said.''Clearly, officers will need some experience in the UK to be practical officers.''
In his Times interview, Sir John said he needed another 7,000 officers to take the force up to 35,000 and that the plan would help increase the proportion of ethnic officers.
"We would be looking at Commonwealth countries and use short-term contracts," Sir John said.
Ethnic targets
The government has said that 25% of the Met's workforce should come from ethnic minorities by 2010.
Ethnic minorities currently make up about 5% of the Met's total workforce.
If Sir John is to meet both his workforce target for the force of 35,000 officers and the government's plans for ethnic composition, almost all of the extra 7,000 officers would have to be from a minority ethnic group.
Rick Naylor, vice-president of the Police Superintendents' Association of England and Wales, said it would be ''imaginative'' but ''ambitious'' to recruit most of them from overseas.
''More effort should be made to recruit from ethnic communities in Britain and on recruitment conditions as a whole,'' Mr Naylor said.
''All the UK forces would welcome more ethnic officers.''
He said the quality of overseas recruits would not be a problem if they underwent the same procedures as UK-based recruits.
But he added: ''What would be a problem would be that a policeman from, say, Bangladesh wouldn't have any background in the UK or London in particular.
"You have to have some cultural awareness.''
Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Glen Smyth echoed Mr Naylor, questioning the recruitment of ''people who have got little contact with what it's like to live and work'' in UK communities.
Improved visibility
Sir John said increasing the workforce would allow the police to do "everything we need".
The public would see "a tremendous improvement of police visibility on the streets," he said.
The Met said that any foreign recruits would have to pass the same literacy, numeracy, security, psychological, medical and fitness tests as domestic recruits.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/england/2023989.stm