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Portugal X X
Romania X X X
Russian Fed. X
Slovakia X
Slovenia X X
Spain X*
Sweden X(3)
Switzerland X+X*
Turkey
United Kingdom X X
Source: Rowe and García Barbero (2005). Notes: (1) Regional Health Care Center; (2) Partly to the
Postgraduate medical training institute; (3) National Board of Health; Medical Affairs; (4) State Medical
Academy; (5) Supreme Licensing Authority; (6) State Health Care Accreditation Agency; (7) President; (8)
Norwegian Registration authority for health personnel; (9) Office of Public Health
I.3.6 International and domestic recruitment policies
International recruitment policies aim to attract foreign health workers either to meet
short falls or to complement the skills of the existing workforce. Self sufficiency policies
aim to meet country’s demand for health personnel. Recruitment policies have been
implemented by UK, Slovakia and Slovenia. The UK adopted an international
recruitment policy in 1998 to fill in the gaps in the National Health Service (NHS) but
move to self-sufficiency policy in 2006.
Slovakia adopted a self sufficiency policy in 2006, aiming to give health professionals
better remuneration, working conditions and social consideration.
Bilateral agreements
Cross borders frameworks are used to steer and manage health professional mobility.
They can be unilateral, bilateral or multilateral, and may be led by national government
or local health care institutions. Bilateral agreements are the most commonly used cross
border framework. They can be used to improve the mobility of international health
workers, notably if they include some clauses whereby a recipient country agrees to
underwrite the costs of training additional staff; o recruit surplus staff in source countries
or recruit staff for a fixed period only, prior to their returning to the source country
(OECD, 2008). The basic idea behind is that if there are countries with surplus or
shortages of health professionals, international immigration can provide efficiency gains
at global as well as individual level. If there is no surplus, international migration would
still generate potential gains for the receiving country which faces to recruitment
difficulties and the individual. In some cases, the emigration of high skilled workers
might also guarantee the continuity of health services in the host country. In this context,
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