The Home Office has asked some Nigerian nurses being probed for an exam fraud that occurred in Nigeria to leave the United Kingdom.
According to Nursing Times, the nurses, who are still awaiting the outcomes of their appeals, have had their visas revoked by the UK.
Reports revealed that the nurses received letters from the Home Office which would see them leave the European country from next week.
In 2023, the UK’s Nursing and Midwifery Council launched a probe into the Yunnik Technologies Test Centre in Ibadan, Oyo State.
It commenced the investigation following an alert it received about unusual data coming from the centre’s site.
Analysis of data coming from the test centre showed that the nurses were sitting their computer-based test in record time.
The CBT is one of two aspects of a test of competence that some foreign nurses must complete as part of their NMC application, usually sat in their home countries.
Following the revelation, the NMC concluded that 48 registrants and 669 applicants might have obtained their test results fraudulently at the Yunnik test centre, leading to the investigation.
NMC concluded that someone was sitting the test on behalf of the applicants at Yunnik. It, therefore, asked all affected registrants and applicants to re-sit and pass a new CBT.
Also, the nurses suspected of fraud were asked to offer extra proof and make representations to NMC in relation to the circumstances of their original test.
Some were later sacked by their employers following the incident.
This caused about 50 nurses to serve NMC with a “pre-action protocol letter” in February, with 14 days ultimatum to respond to their concerns.
They also asked NMC to liaise with the Home Office to ensure the nurses threatened with deportation could stay in the UK until their appeals were concluded.(Punch)
