What staffing crisis? NHS trust poaches nurses for Saudi site

Failing NHS body lures UK workers to private Jeddah hospital with promises of ‘tax-free salaries and sun’

A FAILING NHS Trust is encouraging doctors and nurses to move to Saudi Arabia, with promises of tax-free earnings in the sunshine, despite a staffing crisis.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (KCH) is establishing KCH Jeddah, a private 150-bed site with 1,200 staff, under the first partnership deal with the Kingdom. However, medics are concerned that the project could drain the health service of nurses and doctors at a time of record shortages.

The moves come amid record shortages of NHS staff, with more than 130,000 NHS vacancies across England, with the Government promising to publish a long-delayed workforce strategy.

King’s College NHS Foundation Trust is currently advertising more than 60 vacancies across its UK sites, with open positions for nurses, consultants and midwives.

A Care Quality Commission report published last month ruled that the trust required improvement, but was inadequate in its use of resources. The trust had a high vacancy rate of 14 per cent for nursing, the report said. Some patients told inspectors staff were sometimes “not as caring when staffing numbers were low”, it added.

Under the plans for KCH Jeddah, around one third of doctors could come from the UK, according to private equity investors behind the scheme, with recent recruitment efforts targeting a nursing job fair in Manchester.

Several job advertisements say the hospital is “looking for Uk-registered nurses” saying all must have a degree in nursing from Britain, plus several years’ hospital experience.

While Britain has seen months of NHS strikes, in a drawn-out pay dispute, the project is attempting to entice staff with promises of “competitive taxfree salaries” in a sunny climate.

In a promotional video launched in January, the hospital’s chief nursing officer – a former NHS trust chief – highlights the sunshine and leisure on offer.

“What can I tell you about living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia? Jeddah is situated on the Red Sea coast and has almost 360 days of sunshine in a year,” says Patti Paine, until recently director of midwifery at University Hospital of Derby and Burton Hospitals trust.

In February, representatives from KCH Jeddah were recruiting at the RCNI jobs fair in Manchester.

“KCH London in Jeddah is recruiting across all specialties for clinical services managers, head nurses experienced nurses and midwives, offering competitive tax-free salaries,” their publicity materials boast.

Recruiters for KCH Jeddah make plain that they are targeting UK nursing graduates.

One advertisement posted in February says the hospital is “looking for UK registered nurses” to work in 11 different departments.

“In order to meet the requirements of our nurse jobs, all applicants will hold a Bachelor’s degree in nursing from the UK, with a minimum of two years’ hospital experience post qualification,” it states. The site in Jeddah is expected to open early next year, with 150 beds, later expanding to 250, with health chiefs saying it will have 1,200 staff in total.

“The hospital will employ over 200 doctors – 30 per cent of which will come from the UK,” Ahsan Ali, head of health care, Ashmore Group, last year told Arab News.

Dr Matt Kneale, co-chairman of the Doctors’ Association UK, expressed concern that recruiting medics from Britain would place “strain on an already overstretched NHS workforce”.

Dame Meg Hillier, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said it was “incredible” that the NHS’S foreign partnerships were able to deprive the service of much-needed staff.

Rachel Harrison, national secretary of the GMB union, said efforts to poach staff were “unacceptable” – particularly given Saudi’s record on human rights.

King’s College London Hospital trust says the venture is an investment – and that all profits will be ploughed back into the British health service, for the benefits of patients.

Under a complex set of financial arrangements, taxpayers’ money, invested in the NHS, is used to support partnerships abroad.

The trust has loaned £7million to a holding company – KCH Commercial Services – which has been invested in a trading company, KCH Management Limited, which was set up for the purposes of “recruitment and consultancy”.

The trust describes it as “the largest recruiter of overseas nurses in the UK” – saying most are placed at its London hospital. But KCH Management Ltd also has an equity stake in KCH Healthcare LLC, a UAE business designed for “delivering the same high quality clinical outcomes as Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust”.

In December, the trust was moved out of the lowest finance performance band, after being placed in special measures for running up a £130million deficit in 2017-18. Board papers published last year said it intended to breakeven in 2022-23, but that only £17.8million of its £55million savings target was deliverable, the Health Service Journal reported. The trust refused to say what proportion of revenue comes from overseas entities.

The latest developments are part of an NHS export industry that has seen partnerships overseas, with staff recruited from host countries and the UK. King’s has already launched a hospital in Abu Dhabi, with consultants recruited by KCH clinical leads.

In 2019, the Kings partnership opened a $200 million (£163.6 million) 100-bed hospital in Dubai, backed by two satellite clinics.

When the first overseas site in Abu Dhabi opened, the trust boasted that all lead nurses had previously worked at King’s in London, with the site directly overseen by the trust. King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust declined to answer queries about how many staff were being recruited or seconded from Britain to go to the new Jeddah site, other than to say most staff would come from the host country.

Prof Jim Buchan, senior visiting fellow at the Health Foundation charity, said: “There is a growing international market for well-trained and experienced nurses, and UK nurses are in a good position to help fill that demand.

“With more than 45,000 nursing vacancies in England alone, the NHS is competing in an international labour market for relatively scarce nurses, particularly those with specialist skills and expertise.

“When competition is fierce, it will be employers who offer the best package of pay, safe staffing and career opportunities who will have the advantage.”

Billy Palmer, workforce lead at the Nuffield Trust think tank, suggested that while the NHS has historically recruited from abroad, it might now be more in danger of losing its workers.

“The shoe is on the other foot. We’ve benefited hugely from recruiting from abroad and it’s quite intriguing to see the tables have turned on this, and now we’re worrying about whether we can compete with other countries,” he said.

When the ground was broken on the building project last year, the then chairman of NHS England, Lord Prior, paid tribute to the deal. “I congratulate King’s College Hospital and the Ashmore Group on this hugely significant development in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

The Department for International Trade said the proposed Jeddah development would “greatly benefit from having an NHS partner – King’s College Hospital – which will support the Kingdom’s healthcare transformation and allow for valuable expertise and knowledge transfer to help shape the healthcare provision.”

A spokesman for King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “By partnering with private investors to develop new healthcare facilities overseas, we are able to share our knowledge, skills and expertise, with all profits generated from this work reinvested back into the NHS for the benefit of UK patients.

“We offer an advisory support and quality assurance role to ensure high standards of clinical care are established and maintained at all overseas hospitals that use the King’s name. The majority of the workforce for these facilities are recruited locally from the host country, not from the UK.”