The Home Office, United Kingdom, has asked some nurses at the centre of an investigation into widespread fraud that took place at a test centre in Nigeria to leave the UK despite still awaiting the outcomes of their appeals.
According to Nursing Times, letters sent by the Home Office have asked nurses to leave the UK as soon as next week, after their visas were revoked following fraud allegations by the nursing regulator, Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
The deportation order follows an investigation by the UK’s NMC into suspected malpractice at Yunnik Technologies Test Centre in Ibadan, Oyo State.
The investigation was launched after the NMC was alerted of “anomalous data”.
The probe, which began in 2023, was triggered by unusual data patterns detected in the computer-based test (CBT) for foreign nurses seeking UK registration.
The CBT is a key component of the UK’s nursing qualification process and it is usually taken in applicants’ home countries.
Following the probe, the NMC said it found that 48 registered nurses and 669 applicants might have fraudulently obtained their test results at the Yunnik centre.
The NMC, therefore, ruled that all the test results issued by the centre were invalid.
The NMC had said the affected individuals would have their cases assessed by an independent panel to determine if they indeed committed fraud.
In February 2025, about 50 of them issued a pre-action protocol letter to the NMC, alleging that their hearings were “deliberately” delayed.
The NMC has been accused of “deliberately delaying” hearings and has been urged to immediately remedy the situation so that nurses are not repatriated before their appeal has been heard.
The NMC has refuted claims that the delays are deliberate and said it was working to schedule the remaining hearings as soon as possible.
It comes as almost 2,000 internationally educated Nigerian nurses were impacted by the NMC’s investigation into fraud concerns at a testing site in Ibadan, Nigeria run by Pearson VUE on behalf of the NMC.
