NHS Dumfries and Galloway are delighted to have welcomed its first cohort of four International nurses to the region who arrived last weekend.  

Shincy, Sonja, Yafika and Vidya are all fully trained and very experienced nurses in their own country but will require additional support on arrival to gain their UK registration to practice. Once registered, three nurses will be working on our Critical Care Unit and one in our community hospital at Mountainhall.  

Their arrival marks the start of a yearlong campaign to recruit forty nurses from overseas to settle and become part of our already 2000+ nursing community.  

This campaign is to address our local shortages but is also part of a wider NHS Scotland campaign supported by Scottish Government to address the national shortages of nurses. 

Vic Mc Dade – Workforce Sustainability Manager and the project lead said of the campaign, “It has been a long time in the making, so it is great to have our first cohort arrive. What is more exciting is that we have  a further one arriving in May and another ten offers and checks are being progressed for a start in July.” 

Our new nurses will undergo 8-12 weeks of intense training to secure their UK NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) registration before they can fully practice as a nurse and in that time the Workforce Sustainability team and Clinical Education team have put together a full programme of support to meet their educational and pastoral needs. 

Christina Hoare the Clinical Education Lead who has overall responsibility for their education needs, has recently recruited Carla Young to the team to provide bespoke training. “There is a lot of pressure on Carla and the team to ensure these nurses pass their registration. We are one of the first boards along with Fife and Grampian to start the programme. We have every confidence that the training we have in place and the integrated approach between training and shadowing will give them the time to build relationships in work and the community before jumping into a busy work life.” 

Shincy one our nurses said of her arrival, “it was a long flight but it was great to be met by one of the team at the airport. On Saturday we were shown around Dumfries and met some lovely people from the Multicultural Association who kindly gave us a food parcel and a warm coat. It has made us feel really welcome and we are really excited to be here and get started. 

The Workforce team are appealing to anyone living in the region who has previously practiced as a Nurse and gained their primary qualifications outside of the UK and would like to now explore a career in nursing to contact the team, at dg.jobs@nhs.scot, to see how the Board can support you, now that we have training facilities in place.