We spoke to Susan Godden, Clinical Educator supporting international nurses, objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) training and return to practice nurses, about her role and what it’s like supporting our international nurses to become fully qualified in the UK.
“I started the OSCE program in 2016 when we first began recruiting international nurses. We had to create a programme from scratch without any guidance, to get our nurses through their exams. Last year we trained 85, and over all we have trained 1000 nurses. We started off doing a programme one day a week over six weeks and are now providing a three week intensive boot camp.
“We do an evaluation form after each bootcamp and take on board the feedback from the nurses. We respond and we make changes after every time.
“Now at the end of the last day of bootcamp we hold a little celebration, so nurses bring in food to share some dishes from their home countries. We have so many different nationalities and getting new ones too. We had a bootcamp earlier this year with our first nurses from Liberia, and in our last group we had our first nurse from Thailand.
“We incorporate wellbeing into the OSCE’s, making sure they know where to go if they need any advice. We do some pastoral support ourselves and we get involved in something if they are struggling on the ward or with things at home.
“I work with Felix who is from Ghana and Ada who is from Nigeria. They are also clinical facilitators. I put both of them through OSCE training and Felix had only been here for 8 months when he moved into education. So he tells them his story, and Ada tells them hers, they share what they can do here at the trust and what work life after the training looks like.
“I love my job, I really enjoy doing it. I just love hearing about people from all different countries.”