With the Government planning to boost nursing numbers by recruiting more foreign staff, the debate concerning the value of overseas recruitment drives is beginning to warm up.
Although ministers might be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of plundering the nursing resources of Eastern European countries such as Hungary and Poland once they join the European Union next year, there are others who are sceptical of the value that these nurses can play in a modern NHS.
Concerns include the moral issue of enticing nurses away from countries which are trying to reform their own health services, and the fact that many countries lag behind the UK in allowing nurses to take professional responsibility, so potential recruits may not be as used to assessing, decision making and planning.
On a personal level, having in the past worked abroad where English was not the first language, there are many barriers to transferring your skills to foreign climes, however, my own experience leaves me to believe they are not insurmountable. When I worked in the Netherlands on an acute unit, I was given a one month crash course in Dutch before being let loose on unsuspecting patients. Although during the first few weeks there were moments when I wondered what I had let myself in for, I was given tremendous support and encouragement by my fellow ward members and patients, who would invariably chuckle as I struggled to get to grips with this notoriously difficult language.
Contrary to the experiences of foreign nurses in this country which have been widely reported in both national and nursing press circles, the fact that I sometimes got my verb in the wrong place was met with humour and not with deafening calls for me to be exiled from Holland.
Patients thought it was interesting to chat with the foreign nurses and contrary to popular belief that everyone in the Netherlands speaks English (they don't), it gave me ample opportunity to fine tune my linguistic skills.
The point of my little trip down memory lane is that much has been made of the culture shock and language barriers that await Eastern block nurses when they arrive in the UK. But, anyone who has ever worked abroad will know that even in a country where English is spoken widely, there are indeed language barriers and no matter how close two countries are geographically, the cultural differences can be vast.
It is high time we embraced our European neighbours and ensure that we recruit carefully and morally, but at the same time allow foreign nurses to integrate into British society and become fully paid up members of the NHS.
One problem with living on an island is that we don't allow ourselves to sample the richness and diversity other countries and cultures can bring to enrich our lives, except perhaps when we jet off for a fortnight once a year. If the Government are set on a course to recruit European nurses in their thousands then they should also be working hard to ensure the correct support systems are in place, so that the experience for everyone involved, recruit, other staff, management and most importantly patients is rewarding and worthwhile.
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