Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has received reports of activities by recruitment agencies supplying workers to the UK health and social care sector from overseas in breach of his Department’s code of practice on the recruitment of such workers.

Where concerns have been raised with officials on compliance with the code, these cases have been referred to NHS Employers or other relevant regulatory bodies.

NHS Employers hosts a list of agencies which adhere to the code to assist employers during the selection process. It undertakes routine checks of agencies’ compliance with the code, responds to complaints or breaches and takes necessary action where the code is contravened.