Overseas trained workers

Overseas-trained workers make up a significant part of the NHS workforce, and they often face additional barriers to speaking up compared to colleagues trained in the UK. These barriers can affect not only their wellbeing and career progression, but also patient safety.

Listening and learning: Amplifying the voices of overseas-trained workers, a review of the speaking up experiences of overseas-trained workers in England, highlights the unique challenges faced by NHS workers trained outside the UK when speaking up.

Our review highlights four key themes and makes four recommendations aimed at national and local healthcare leaders:

• Make recruitment and retention guidance support speaking up
• Design speaking up arrangements that work for everyone
• Use better data to understand and improve experiences 
• Build cultural competence and awareness to remove barriers to speaking up.

The review also highlights practical steps to improve cultural intelligence, support speaking up, and ensure fair, inclusive systems for all workers.