International Nurses Day: Leena's story | Blogs

International Nurses Day is celebrated on 12 May each year, to coincide with the birthday of Florence Nightingale, and since 1988 has been given a theme by the ICN.

Here is a story from our nurses from out memeber Trust, East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT).

Leena Sankar and three colleagues joined Bedfordshire Community Health Services (BCHS) from India in spring 2022.

The group were the service’s first international recruits. Leena has been successful in applying for promotion and has now taken up a Band 6 nursing position in Leighton Buzzard – and is the first from the group to be promoted.

Colleagues have praised the contribution of Leena and her colleagues in providing excellent patient care.

“Leena and our other international recruits have excelled in their roles. Leena has worked so hard at learning new skills and brought a wealth of knowledge to share from her nursing career in India,” said Victoria Stone, BCHS head of cluster and Primary Care Home (PCH) South Bedfordshire.

“She has been a wonderful ambassador for India and for the NHS. Leena has studied hard, worked hard and taken all the challenges of moving to a new country in her stride.”

She added: “I am incredibly proud of her achievements.”

Leena said she would always recommend ELFT to any nurses looking forward to a new career opportunity as international recruits.

“It’s great working with ELFT. The amount of support provided by the trust in all walks of our recruitment, placement and getting settled in UK was incredible,” she said.

“We received a warm welcome at Heathrow by the great nurse leaders of the trust and brief introduction was given about the trust values, services and expectations from us.”

She added: “Working as a community sister added more to my clinical expertise and body of knowledge. I am thankful for all the support and encouragement throughout for the new job role as Band 6 community sister and look forward to continuing to grow along with the Trust.”