Does a code make a difference? - Assessing the UK code of practice on international recruitment
This is the first independent assessment of the impact of the UK Department of Health’s code of practice on the international recruitment of health professionals. This 8-page report looks into the effectiveness of policies intended to mitigate the impact of ‘brain drain’ in the health sector.
The paper examines trends in inflows of health professionals to the UK in particular from Ghana and Kenya. The data also shows a reduction in inflow of health professionals for both nurses and doctors partially due to declining demand in the UK, but is inconclusive as to whether the Code was partly responsible for this decline.
The report makes the following recommendations, “The potential to assess the effect of the Code in England is constrained by the limitations in available databases. This is a crucial lesson for those considering a global code: without a clear link between explicit objectives of a code, and relevant monitoring capacity, it is not possible to judge the actual impact of a code.”
A second message for policy-makers is that attempts to use a single country code in other countries where there are a multiplicity of independent, private-sector health care employers, or where there is a federated political and regulatory structure, will be a much more challenging and complex issue than in England, which has one major public sector health care employer and one national point of entry for regulated health professionals.”
Finally, there is a message about the importance of the “visibility” of any recruitment code - for policy-makers, employers and potential recruits. The Department of Health Code has a good level of recognition in the National Health Service, but would benefit from better dissemination in low income countries, particularly in Africa, together with further consultation on the appropriateness of its provisions in specific countries. To achieve high visibility and recognition of any global code will be a much bigger challenge.”
