Hundreds of NHS frontline staff are still treating patients despite being investigated for alleged “industrial scale” qualifications fraud.
More than 700 nursing staff have been embroiled in a potential scandal which the former president of the Royal College of Nursing says could put NHS patients at risk.
The scam allegedly involves agents posing as nurses and taking key tests in Nigeria that they must pass to register and be allowed to work in the UK.
“It is very, very worrying if… there is an organization involved in fraud that enables nurse practitioners to bypass these tests, or they use agents to carry out the tests for them, because it means we will end up with something like this in the UK Of nurses: Peter Carter, former chief executive of the RCN and former chairman of three NHS trusts, said: “They don’t have the capacity. “
He praised the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for taking action against those involved “to protect the quality of care and patient safety and the reputation of nursing staff”.
Carter added that nurses coming to work in the UK must have appropriate qualifications given their role in administering medicines and intravenous fluids and responding to emergencies such as cardiac arrest.
48 of the nurses were already working as nurses in the NHS because the NMC was unable to cancel their registration, which is required for anyone who wants to work as a nurse or midwife in the UK. It tells them to retake the test to demonstrate their skills are sufficient to meet NHS standards, but cannot suspend them.
The 48 people will have individual hearings starting in March, in which they will be asked to explain how they took and passed the computer-based numeracy and clinical knowledge test (CBT) administered at the Yunnik exam center in Mexico City. Ibadan. The recorded times raised suspicion because they were among the fastest ever seen by the care regulator.
But the NMC is taking more direct action against a second group of 669 Nigerian health workers – again mostly nurses but also including less than five midwives – whose test results it found were also fraudulently obtained. Most of them have also come to the UK, sources said.
However, their status is different to that of the 48 as they are considered to work primarily as medical assistants in the NHS and care homes. This is because the NMC has not yet approved their application to be added to its register while it is still investigating widespread impersonation at the Yunnik testing centre.
About 80 nurse practitioners out of 669 applicants have been given the new CBT test and have applied to join the NMC register so they can start working in the role. However, the care regulator has banned almost all of them because it has “serious concerns” about their honesty and trustworthiness.
The NMC said: “This is because, even with the new CBT, there are still character issues given what happened to Yunnik and what the figures for these men appear to show.”
NMC chief executive and registrar Andrea Sutcliffe said the NMC had taken the necessary steps after Pearson VUE, which runs the Yunnik exam centre, alerted the NMC last year to “widespread fraudulent activity” in which “agent testers” were posing as themselves. strong action. Nurse.
“This is the first time we have found evidence of widespread fraud at a test centre,” she said. She added that this was the largest such fraud the NMC had ever encountered.
Yunnik’s deception led the NMC to invalidate CBT test results apparently obtained by 1,955 Nigerian-trained health professionals. All of them, even the 1,238 people the regulator said could not prove involvement in fraud, were given three chances to retake the CBT test or face expulsion or removal from the register.
“We are concerned that the 48 people who have registered have obtained their test results fraudulently. We will hold hearings where an independent panel will determine whether these people were fraudulently placed on our register. If so, they are likely to be removed from the register. removed from the list,” Sutcliffe said.
“There are 669 applicants on the register and we share the same fraud concerns with them. We are carefully reviewing each application against our health and character guidelines. So far we have considered 80 applications, the vast majority Most are denied registration and these people can appeal.”
The future of the 717 nurses remains unclear. The GMB union fears those who are denied inclusion on the NMC register will be sent back to Nigeria. Nurses are being “exploited” in Nigeria, the report said, urging the NMC to allow anyone with questionable test results to be retested in the UK and saying the health service needed their skills to help tackle a UK-wide nurse shortage.
The GMB said two Nigerian female members had their applications for NMC registration rejected, despite insisting that Yunnik’s test results were legitimate. Both men were subsequently sacked from the private care home where they worked until their identities were established, and they now fear they will be deported to Nigeria with their families.
“Center directors have exploited the hopes of workers who want care in the UK, leaving our members in a desperate situation.
Louise Gilmour, the GMB’s Scottish secretary, said: “The profession’s high standards of integrity must be enforced, but these aspiring nurses were given the wrong advice, first registering with the center and then giving a questionable account of what happened there. “
“If they pass the necessary tests in the UK, they should be given another chance and allowed to work.
“These workers, mostly women, are willing to give up their lives to settle here and work in health and social care services, which are facing a crisis in staff recruitment and retention.”
Before the Yunnik fraud came to light, NMC had stopped using 40 of the 800 test centers it used around the world, including Yunnik itself.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We are aware of a fraud investigation by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) into nursing staff who passed computerized tests at a center in Nigeria.
“We are informed that the NMC is taking all necessary steps to ensure the integrity of its register and protect patient safety.”
