FUNDAMENTACIÓN DE LA APELACIÓN DE LA PARTE IMPUTADA

When arriving in the UK, IRNs had different experiences ranging from very negative to very positive. Some very bad first impressions are reflected in these two stories:

First time I was here I worked as an agency nurse, uhm, recruited from Australia and was promised to be sort of met at the airport, have accommodation all ready for me and all these sorts of things and I found it very frustrating in terms of the fact that when I did get here, uhm, the accommodation hadn’t been arranged and when I rang them to say when I was going to be met at the airport or in my actual case I was being met at a motel and the day that they were actually picking me up it was like, uhm: “Well there’s been a change of plans, we can’t come and pick you up.” And I just demanded that they come and I be picked up because I had no idea where the accommodation was going to be and all that stuff. So I found that very

frustrating as a sort of new start here, sort of being sort of left in the middle of London and the actual accommodation was quite a way outside of London and I was expected then to, with all my baggage, to try and find my own way to this

accommodation. The accommodation turned out to be that they hadn’t been paying the rent properly as well, so after three months of being there we were then thrown out. The landlord came around and said: “Look”, you know, “you’re supposed to moving out this weekend.” So that’s what, it initially started off to be, uhm, quite frustrating.

On getting here the first experience was at the airport, I don’t know where Surrey is, my first time of coming to, not coming to England, but coming to that side of England to work. So I got there, I phoned the nursing home: “I’m at the airport, you said you were sending somebody to collect me.” “Oh, it’s a pity the driver is not here.” Anyway, I said: “So what am I to do?” She said: “Stay there until we send a driver.” I was at the airport, I think we arrived in the morning, I was in the airport until 4pm waiting for transport to come and collect me. Checking everybody with these, you know, these signs you hold. … Nobody came. I phoned and she said: “Oh, is the driver not there yet?” I said: “No driver.” She said: “Okay, I’ll see to it, I’ll phone you back.” I said: “Well how do you phone me?” Anyway there was a number on the phone I used so I give her that number and I stood there with my luggage by my side. So I waited again, nothing happened, so I started asking from the people there: “Sorry, how do I get there?” Someone said: “Go down, get a coach.” Oh my god, it was a nasty experience. … So I had to then walk because I didn’t know my way I go in here. Anyway, at last I found a place to get the, uhm, coach and it took me to Woking. And from Woking I had to phone again to the nursing home: “I’m now at Woking, how do I get to you?” She said: “Take a taxi.” “How do I take a taxi? I have no money, nothing on me. I haven’t got English money to take a taxi.” (She said): “Okay, take a taxi, when you get to the nursing home we pay the driver.” So I finally got a taxi that took me there and they paid the driver. On getting there I was asked to sleep in one of the resident’s room. I mean, you know, a patient’s room. There wasn’t a patient there. The light wasn’t quite good enough for me to see the sheets I was lying on. In the next morning when I woke up there was daylight, I could see I was lying on urine … Not quite two months after that I had a urine infection. So that was the experience I had. They promised to give me a place to live and so on, nothing came up.

(female, 54 years old, Nigerian, black, E grade)

Even if other participants in the study described similar problematic experiences with the reception, these two stories stand out as particularly appalling. It is perhaps worth noticing that the worst experiences seem to come from IRNs who were recruited by a care home or for agency work. Even if some of these smaller employers might be less well equipped to arrange the reception, this does not mean, however, that nurses recruited to work for the NHS only had good experiences when arriving, nor does it mean that smaller employers were not able to arrange a good reception. In general, however, managers have expressed that they have learned from their previous mistakes and are now providing planned programmes of ‘meet and greet’ and induction for new IRNs (RCN 2003: 18). During the focus groups some IRNs told about their good experiences with the receptions arranged by their UK employers.

My reception was very good, when I got to the airport there was somebody who took me to some, to a place and even there I found somebody waiting for me there and my first experience, my first day I was taken into a hotel. That’s where I slept overnight, which was welcome, I welcomed because I was very tired from travelling and then the following day I was taken to another place, which I did not know when

accommodated for ten days in a bed and breakfast and then the day after they assisted me to get an accommodation that they had promised.

(female, 52 years old, South African, black, D grade)