To meet the UK Government’s target of 50,000 more nurses for the NHS by 2025, the Nuffield Trust reckons 5,000 recruits will be needed from overseas every year. But what if their English isn’t up to soothing fevered brows or providing a calming bedside manner?
Enter a partnership between Glasgow EdTech firm Klik2Learn and the City of Glasgow College to offer a tailored programme for nurses. Called Passport to Employment in Healthcare, the digital course is designed by Klik2Learn and will be offered by the college through its Digital Learning Hub. Students can take the course either via an app or in a tutor-supported version. The skills taught will prepare the overseas students to pass the Cambridge Occupational English Test (OET), which is a requirement for those who want to work in the NHS.
Passport to Employment uses speech recognition technology so that the nurses can gaiin confidence by practising talking to patients and their relatives, as well as co-workers in realistic scenarios. A range of British accents are deployed so that the healthcare workers can become familiar with them, and there is plenty of practise using both formal and informal speech, so the nurses can provide that essential empathetic bedside manner.
“It’s important that anyone coming to work in the UK has all the vital English language skills they need, not just to pass an exam, but to do their job with confidence, regardless of their language background,” says Anne Attridge, Klik2Learn’s CEO.
The course is scheduled to launch in May 2021.
