On Monday, August 21, Susan Nakhumicha, the cabinet secretary for health, announced the selection of the second group of 76 Kenyan nurses who would work in the UK.
The second group of nurses, chosen from 701 applications, will depart the nation on this month’s 24th, according to the CS.
This comes after President of Kenya signed the Bilateral Labor Agreement (BLA) with the United Kingdom in July of last year.
Only 424 nurses fulfilled the qualifications, according to the CS, and their applications were sent to other recruiters for review.
As to the Nursing Council of Kenya (NCK) and the Ministry of Health’s progress report on the hiring of Kenyan nurses under the Kenya-UK bilateral health workforce, 198 candidates failed the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or Occupational English Test (OET), 79 failed the IELTS tests, 200 did not sit the Computer Based Testing (CBT) 200 while 77 failed the CBT.
The report published by NCK also shows that 36 nurses failed the interview process due to insufficient experience, while 52 candidates who recently applied passed and are awaiting the processing of their Certificate of Sponsorship (COS) and pre-employment checks (46 being processed by Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) and 6 with Oxford University).
Others had either failed to impress the hiring panel or worked at facilities with a minimal bed capacity (fewer than 200 patients per bed).
While 75 nurses fulfilled the qualifications but did not submit their applications to the recruiting agencies, the remaining 77 nurses fulfilled all the requirements and their CVs and application materials were shared with recruitment companies in the UK. Ten nurses withdrew from the process due to personal circumstances.