CODE | Stated objectives | Scope | Implementation mechanism | Considerations for developing countries | Distinguishing features |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (May 2010) | Establish and promote voluntary principles; Serve as a reference to improve legal framework; Provide guidance in the formulation and implementation of bilateral agreements; Facilitate and promote international discussion and cooperation | Global | Bilateral agreements among states and other supplementary international legal instruments | Destination countries should respect the overriding legal obligation of health personnel to fulfill their working obligations in home countries and seek not to recruit them | Establishment of national health authority to provide updates on Code implementation and exchange information on health workforce migration to the WHO Secretariat |
Destination countries should provide financial and technical support to developing source countries | Global scope: considers rights and obligations of both source and destination countries and migrant health personnel | ||||
WFPHA Code of Ethics Pertaining to Health Worker Recruitment from Developing Countries (May 2005) | Judiciously manage the employment of health professionals from abroad | International—applies to all member states of the WFPHA | Mandating WFPHA governments work only with employers that comply with the Code | Low-income countries receive something in compensation for sending health professionals (e.g. health worker exchange programs, government remuneration, continuing education for workers) | Builds upon UK DoH Code of Practice by restricting recruitment from developing countries that only have bilateral agreements with WFPHA |
Proposes definition for “active recruitment” | |||||
UK Department of Health Code of Practice for the International Recruitment of Healthcare Professionals (Dec 2004) | Offer principles and best practice benchmarks to be met in order to supply and manage international health professionals in an ethical manner. | Regional – applies to employers of the UK’s National Health System | Mandating NHS to work only with recruitment agencies that comply with the Code | Aims to prevent the active recruitment of healthcare workers from developing countries unless a government-to-government agreement to support recruitment exists | First national code of practice for international recruitment |
Provide targeted recruitment guidelines, education and language proficiency requirements, and employment laws related to international recruitment in order to establish ethical practice (DOH, 2004). | Manages migration with respect to active recruitment, but does not advocate for the retention or training of health workers in either the source or destination country | Best practice benchmarks to gauge adherence to core principles | |||
Online registry of commercial recruitment agencies complying with the code of practice | |||||
Non-compliance by recruitment agencies can lead to grievances, investigations and loss of business with NHS. | |||||
Commonwealth Code of Practice for the International Recruitment of Health Workers (May 2003) | To provide Commonwealth governments with a framework for the ethical international recruitment of health workers to take place, taking into account the impact of such recruitment on source countries | International – applies to all governments of the Commonwealth nations | Promote dialogue among developed and developing countries to resolve this challenge | Acknowledges that recruitment diminishes the source country’s human resources and negatively impacts health systems. | Proposes its scope go beyond Commonwealth nations and be taken as a proposed global code of practice on this issue |
Follow-up with bilateral and other contractual agreements, e.g. bonding health workers | Bilateral agreements should regulate the recruitment process and be accompanied by mechanisms to detect non-compliance. (Labonte, Packer et al, 2007). |