More potential registrants have been identified and their applications have been halted.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has announced it will launch a probe into some nurses who trained abroad.
A total of 512 registered nurses or midwives have been identified as undertaking a skills test at a centre in Ibadan, Nigeria which has been identified as potentially “fraudulent”.
To make sure internationally educated professionals are proficient, they must take a two-part test before joining the NMA register: a computer-based test (CBT) usually sat in their home country, and a practical test (OSCE) in the UK.
Private company Pearson VUE run the NMC’s overseas testing centres and alerted the regular to irregularities.
The nursing regular has said they are writing to those individuals, informing them of their concerns and opening cases to determine whether or not they gained fraudulent or incorrect entry to the register.
More potential registrants have been identified and their applications have been halted.
Unusual and concerning.
Andrea Sutcliffe, NMC Chief Executive and Registrar, said: “Data from one test site in Nigeria is unusual and concerning. We have regulatory processes which we will now follow, and if necessary, we can refuse registration or remove people from our register, to protect the public and people who use health and care services.
“We know the public and people who use services may find this worrying. This affects just over 500 out of the 771,445 professionals on our register. They will all have passed the practical test in this country before they were accepted onto the register and to date no concerns have been referred to us about their fitness to practise.
“We should remember that thousands of nurses and midwives who were educated overseas have safely joined our register recently and continue to provide safe, effective and kind care across the UK.”
Those who have not already joined the register will be asked to retake the test, while those already registered could not face Fitness to Practice investigations.
Pearson VUE has reviewed all data relating to the NMC’s CBT from every test site globally, and there is no evidence of similar activity at any other site.
