AN East Lancashire hospital chief has hit back at a report that suggests employing nurses from overseas has an adverse impact on patient care.

The study by King’s College London and the University of Southampton, published in journal BMJ Open, found that the hospitals with the highest proportion of foreign nurses also had the highest levels of patient dissatisfaction, with patients more likely to say they struggled to understand staff, and less likely to feel treated with dignity.

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But the East Lancashire NHS Trust, whose director of nurses has travelled to the Philippines to recruit nurses in the past, said it is happy with the quality of its nurses.

Kevin Moynes, the trust’s director of human resources and organisational development, said: “The trust has been very happy with the nurses who have been recruited. Any nurse recruited by the trust undertakes a rigorous assessment, which includes English language tests for overseas nurses. This ensures all our nurses are of a very high standard when they begin working at the trust.

“We have a strong community of foreign nurses within the East Lancashire area, who have been providing excellent care to our patients for a number of years, including more than 50 nurses from the Philippines who have worked successfully within the trust for more than 10 years.”

Russ McLean, chairman of the Pennine Lancashire Patient Voices Group, championed the use of nurses trained overseas and said they save the NHS money and offer a better continuity of care than agency staff. He said: “Without these nurses from overseas we would have a staff shortage.”