Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2023 to Question 166379 on Health Professions: Migrant Workers, if he will make it his policy not to recruit health workers from Nepal.

In August 2022, the Government of Nepal and the Government of the United Kingdom signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the managed and ethical recruitment of Nepalese healthcare workers to the UK. This agreement explicitly sets out that any recruitment must adhere to the UK’s codes of practice for the ethical international recruitment of health and social care personnel.

The MOU is signed on the basis that the active recruitment of health and care workers from Nepal to the UK will begin with an initial small-scale pilot to recruit up to 100 nurses over a period of 15 months. During the pilot, recruitment activities will be limited to one Trust and its partners. No other UK employer or recruitment agency should carry out active health worker recruitment activities in Nepal. This will mean the UK Government can monitor and ensure that all active recruitment through this MOU is done in accordance with the strongest ethical principles.