UK and Kenya say nurse recruitment plan is still on Critical care nurse, Emily Chepng'eno plugs a ventilator machine hose into the Oxygen delivery port

The Kenyan and UK governments have denied that the plan to recruit unemployed Kenyan nurses to work in the UK's National Health Service (NHS) has been stopped.

There has been some confusion as a story on the NHS Employers website

said: "Employers and recruitment agencies, including NHS trusts, must stop all active recruitment of health and social care personnel from Kenya to the UK with immediate effect."

The reason behind the change was that Kenya had been added to a UK list of countries where there was a shortage of nurses and other health workers.

In July the UK and Kenya announced a deal that would enable the UK to reduce employment shortages in the NHS by recruiting nurses from Kenya who were unemployed.

On Friday, the Kenyan and UK authorities said that this deal was still on as the ban on recruitment did not apply as long as it complied with the terms of a government-to-government agreement.

The statement said that the ban was aimed at stopping private companies taking advantage of increased interest "and stops uncontrolled recruitment".

Kenya's Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe had said 20,000 Kenyan nurses would travel.

However, it is unclear how many have been recruited so far under this scheme.

Last month, Mr Kagwe said that only 10 out of 300 health workers who had taken the required English language test had passed.

This article originally appeared in BBC News.

Photo: AFP