The international nurse recruitment market is incredibly competitive at the moment. Many western countries are struggling with clinical shortages, and are offering increasingly generous incentives to tempt international nurses to their organisations.
The majority of nurses are given offers before applying to the NMC to ensure their registration expenses will be covered by their new employer. Once the nurse starts down this process, it takes anywhere from 3-5 months typically for a nurse to receive their decision letter – the point at which they are given official approval to enter the UK.
At this stage the process should be fairly quick – the employer assigns the CoS, the applicant applies for the visa, and then the flights are booked. Depending on priority level, this can happen in less than two weeks. Typically the nurse is keen to arrive as soon as possible.
However this can only happen quickly if the employer has put adequate procedures in place to be able to assign the CoS at the appropriate time. There are some key actions the employer must have taken to ensure the process runs smoothly.
- They must have conducted the Resident Labour Market Test (RLMT).
The RLMT requires that vacancies are subject to a four-week advertising period (28 days). This four-week period does not have to be continuous.
- They must ensure they have at least one active user on the account who can assign a CoS.
Please note if you have a change in staff it can take 18 weeks to appoint a new user (unless they are prepared to pay the 5 day priority fee). The individual who assigns the CoS must be someone still working at the organisation otherwise it will be considered a serious breach of sponsorship duties.
- They must be in a position to assign a Certificate of Sponsorship.
Currently this is relatively straightforward as employers can apply to UKVI by the 5th of the month for a Restricted CoS. However from 2019, all nurse CoSs will be moving to Unrestricted CoSs and if employers haven’t applied for unrestricted CoSs in advance, they will need to wait 18 weeks for them to be approved (unless they are prepared to pay the 5 day priority fee).
The danger of not putting these measures in place in advance is that employers experience significant delays at a late stage, and candidates won’t wait around. Candidates know they are in demand and as a nurse with a decision letter they are very eligible. The majority of nurses who experience unexpected delays will begin to assess other options and the risk is that employers lose great personnel at the last hurdle. Unnecessary stress, expense and time can be avoided by planning ahead.
My Healthcare Recruit supports UK healthcare employers in the public, private, and care sector to find international nurses who are a great fit for their organisation, by using market-leading video interviewing tools to connect them to our database of qualified candidates. Our innovative approach makes international candidates easier to find and more cost-effective to source than ever before. Find out more at www.myhealthcarerecruit.com