Documenting migrant carers’ experiences of registration and fitness to practise

Professor Marie-Andrée Jacob and Dr Priyasha Saksena to undertake a new research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Starting in March 2023, Dr Priyasha Saksena and Professor Marie-Andrée Jacob will work on a two year interdisciplinary project Making it to the Registers: Documenting Migrant Carers’ Experiences of Registration and Fitness to Practise alongside Dr Nasreen Ali (University of Bedfordshire) and project partner BAPIO (British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin). They are currently recruiting for a Research Fellow in Oral History and Digital Humanities to join the research team.

The £540,000 (fEC) project will be funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and seeks to interrogate the lived dimensions of the regulation of global, migrant carers. It focuses on the creation and maintenance of the professionalised healthcare workforce in the UK. Specifically, the project aims to unpack the gate-keeping functions performed by two regulatory tools, registration and fitness to practise, appraising their impact on the experiences of migrant carers, in both historical and contemporary perspectives. It will involve a series of activities, including the creation of a digital archive of interviews and a digital exhibition of meaningful objects associated with professional registration, academic events and public-facing activities such as sharing events with migrant healthcare workers and youth theatre.

Professor Jacob said, “We are delighted to receive funding from the AHRC to undertake such a timely project. The recent global Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the reliance of UK healthcare on an international workforce, but the use of overseas-trained carers is neither new nor exceptional.

“Our project will take stock of historical and current approaches to overseas-trained healthcare workers within professional regulation and assess whether the rules and their application enable or impair progressive solutions, and for whom.”

Making it to the Registers is a truly interdisciplinary project and brings together anthropology, history, sociology and legal studies.

Dr Saksena added, “Making it to the Registers is a truly interdisciplinary project and brings together anthropology, history, sociology and legal studies. We are excited to be working with our partner, BAPIO, and other organisations, and benefit from their experience and expertise.

“We hope that the project sparks conversations around the experiences of overseas-trained healthcare workers in the UK and aim to create an archive of community stories that will be open to the public.”

A project website is currently under development and further details will be shared in due course.

The deadline to apply for the role of Research Fellow in Oral History and Digital Humanities is Tuesday 6 December 2022.