New Visa Rules In The UK: IELTS And TOEFL No Longer Necessary For Health Care Professionals

The UK visa rules have been updated recently. According to the new visa rules in the UK, IELTS and TOEFL are no longer necessary for health care professionals who wish to migrate and practice in the UK.

It is mandatory for the health care professionals who plan to practice in the UK to take the OET (Occupational English Test) to get themselves registered with the respective regulator of healthcare. Based on the new visa rules in the UK the scores of this test will be accepted by the migration authorities.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Earlier the medical and health care professionals had to take the OET to get themselves registered with the General Medical Council (GMC) or the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

They are the two major medical and health care boards operating in the United Kingdom and they had to appear either for the TOEFL or the IELTS examination to apply for a visa in the UK.

Occupational English Language Test Or OET

Given below are some of the important details regarding the Occupational English Language Test or OET.

Occupational English Test or the OET is conducted by the Cambridge Box Hill Language Assessment (CBLA). This examination is designed in such a way to meet the specific needs of the English language in the medical and health care sector in the UK.

The test determines the candidate’s (healthcare professional’s) proficiency in the English language. The OET is conducted for 12 different health care professions. They are:

Medicine
Dentistry
Physiotherapy
Nursing
Optometry
Occupational Therapy
Pharmacology
Radiography
Veterinary Science
Dietetics
Speech Pathology
Podiatry

The OET score is essential for all health care professionals to get themselves registered under the General Medical Council (GMC) or the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)

Besides the United Kingdom, the OET is also recognized as the English language proficiency test for registration in countries like New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Singapore, Namibia, Ukraine and Dubai

The New Visa Rules In The UK For Medical And Healthcare Professionals

The health care professional seeking a Tier 2 visa to the UK do not have to sit through the IELTS or TOEFL examination if they’ve cleared the OET. Thus the doctors, nurses and other medical care workers do not have to appear for two examinations that determine their proficiency in the English language.

The change will come to effect beginning from the 1^st of October 2019. This applies to all the applicants seeking the Tier 2 visa to the United Kingdom.

Health care professionals seeking a work visa to the UK do not have to sit through two examinations to assess their proficiency in the English language.
This means they do not have to appear for the IELTS or TOEFL examinations
The candidates have to appear for the Occupational English Test (OET) for getting registered under the respective health board.
The OET score received by the candidate will now be accepted by the UK Immigration authorities to get a visa in the UK.
The change will come in to effect beginning from the 1^st of October 2019
The change applies to all the applicants seeking a Tier 2 Visa (General Visa) to the United Kingdom.

With the change in the visa rules, health care centers and hospitals in the UK will be able to recruit and appoint professionals from other nations quickly.