Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration
Purpose: Refugee healthcare professionals (RHPs) may encounter several barriers to employment upon moving to the UK, such as conversion of professional qualifications and a lack of familiarity with the recruitment process. The Building Bridges Programme (BBP) is a London-based multi-agency collabor...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Dove Medical Press
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/5367/1/amep-213543-integrating-refugee-health-professionals-in-the-uk-national-.pdf |
| _version_ | 1825625425015996416 |
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| author | Butt, Mohsin Faysal Salmon, Louise Mulamehic, Fahira Hixon, Avelyn Moodambail, Abdul Rehman Gupta, Sandy |
| author_facet | Butt, Mohsin Faysal Salmon, Louise Mulamehic, Fahira Hixon, Avelyn Moodambail, Abdul Rehman Gupta, Sandy |
| author_sort | Butt, Mohsin Faysal |
| collection | LMU |
| description | Purpose:
Refugee healthcare professionals (RHPs) may encounter several barriers to employment upon moving to the UK, such as conversion of professional qualifications and a lack of familiarity with the recruitment process. The Building Bridges Programme (BBP) is a London-based multi-agency collaboration which helps refugee healthcare professionals seek employment in the UK National Health Service (NHS).
Methods:
We have kept an electronic database of all RHPs who have participated in the BBP from October 2009 to March 2018. Data collected include gender, language spoken, country of initial medical qualification, immigration status, religion, ethnicity and professional work experience. In this paper, we focus on employment outcomes and determine the proportion (%) of RHPs joining the BBP who enter employment in the NHS.
Results:
Between October 2009 and March 2018, the BBP supported 372 refugee doctors, 42 refugee pharmacists, 69 refugee dentists, 25 refugee biomedical scientists, 4 refugee physiotherapists and 83 refugee nurses. The following are the results for the RHPs who settled into a registered NHS position appropriate to their (home country) professional qualifications: 98/372 (26%) doctors, 4/42 (10%), pharmacists, 17/69 (25%) dentists, 1/25 (9%) biomedical scientists, 1/4 (25%) physiotherapists and 2/83 (2%) nurses. The following are the results for the RHPs who settled in associated healthcare profession positions: 109/372 (29%) doctors, 16/42 (38%) pharmacists, 12/69 (17%) dentists, 10/25 (40%) biomedical scientists, 3/4 (75%) physiotherapists and 34/83 (41%) nurses.
Conclusion:
The BBP provides a useful model that is transferable to other countries. Future studies assessing the utility of such programmes should ensure that the long-term employment outcomes of RHPs are more closely tracked. A key limitation of this paper is the absence of a control group of participants who did not join the BPP, which would help to conclusively demonstrate whether participants who joined our programme had a statistically significant improvement in employment outcomes. |
| first_indexed | 2024-07-09T03:59:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | oai:repository.londonmet.ac.uk:5367 |
| institution | London Metropolitan University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-07-09T03:59:25Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Dove Medical Press |
| record_format | eprints |
| spelling | oai:repository.londonmet.ac.uk:53672019-12-13T11:53:17Z https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/5367/ Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration Butt, Mohsin Faysal Salmon, Louise Mulamehic, Fahira Hixon, Avelyn Moodambail, Abdul Rehman Gupta, Sandy 360 Social problems & services; associations Purpose: Refugee healthcare professionals (RHPs) may encounter several barriers to employment upon moving to the UK, such as conversion of professional qualifications and a lack of familiarity with the recruitment process. The Building Bridges Programme (BBP) is a London-based multi-agency collaboration which helps refugee healthcare professionals seek employment in the UK National Health Service (NHS). Methods: We have kept an electronic database of all RHPs who have participated in the BBP from October 2009 to March 2018. Data collected include gender, language spoken, country of initial medical qualification, immigration status, religion, ethnicity and professional work experience. In this paper, we focus on employment outcomes and determine the proportion (%) of RHPs joining the BBP who enter employment in the NHS. Results: Between October 2009 and March 2018, the BBP supported 372 refugee doctors, 42 refugee pharmacists, 69 refugee dentists, 25 refugee biomedical scientists, 4 refugee physiotherapists and 83 refugee nurses. The following are the results for the RHPs who settled into a registered NHS position appropriate to their (home country) professional qualifications: 98/372 (26%) doctors, 4/42 (10%), pharmacists, 17/69 (25%) dentists, 1/25 (9%) biomedical scientists, 1/4 (25%) physiotherapists and 2/83 (2%) nurses. The following are the results for the RHPs who settled in associated healthcare profession positions: 109/372 (29%) doctors, 16/42 (38%) pharmacists, 12/69 (17%) dentists, 10/25 (40%) biomedical scientists, 3/4 (75%) physiotherapists and 34/83 (41%) nurses. Conclusion: The BBP provides a useful model that is transferable to other countries. Future studies assessing the utility of such programmes should ensure that the long-term employment outcomes of RHPs are more closely tracked. A key limitation of this paper is the absence of a control group of participants who did not join the BPP, which would help to conclusively demonstrate whether participants who joined our programme had a statistically significant improvement in employment outcomes. Dove Medical Press 2019-10-24 Article PeerReviewed text en cc_by_nc https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/5367/1/amep-213543-integrating-refugee-health-professionals-in-the-uk-national-.pdf Butt, Mohsin Faysal, Salmon, Louise, Mulamehic, Fahira, Hixon, Avelyn, Moodambail, Abdul Rehman and Gupta, Sandy (2019) Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration. Advances in medical education and practice, 10. pp. 891-896. ISSN 1179-7258 10.2147/AMEP.S213543 10.2147/AMEP.S213543 |
| spellingShingle | 360 Social problems & services; associations Butt, Mohsin Faysal Salmon, Louise Mulamehic, Fahira Hixon, Avelyn Moodambail, Abdul Rehman Gupta, Sandy Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration |
| title | Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration |
| title_full | Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration |
| title_fullStr | Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration |
| title_full_unstemmed | Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration |
| title_short | Integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the UK National Health Service: experience from a multi-agency collaboration |
| title_sort | integrating refugee healthcare professionals in the uk national health service experience from a multi agency collaboration |
| topic | 360 Social problems & services; associations |
| url | https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/5367/1/amep-213543-integrating-refugee-health-professionals-in-the-uk-national-.pdf |
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