Ohene Consult / Nurses
🇬🇧 🇺🇸 Licensure & registration pathwayGhanaian nurses are wanted.
Nobody is allowed to recruit you.
Both statements are true, and the gap between them is where every nurse from Ghana gets lost. Understanding it is the difference between a route that works and a contract you spend years regretting.
The fact nobody will tell you
Ghana is on the UK red list.
Ghana is one of 54 countries on the UK's Code of Practice red list, drawn from the World Health Organization's Health Workforce Support and Safeguards List. UK health and social care employers and recruitment agencies are not permitted to actively recruit from Ghana, because Ghana's own health system cannot afford to lose the staff.
Here is the part that matters, and that the agencies messaging you leave out: the list does not stop an individual applying. You may approach a UK employer independently, of your own accord, provided you have not been targeted by a third party such as an agency or the employer itself.
So the only lawful route out of Ghana into the NHS is the one where you apply yourself. Anyone offering to place you is either breaching the Code or is not what they claim to be.
What this means in practice
- You apply directly to trusts and providers, in your own name
- You may accept a job if an employer offers you one on your own application
- We advise, prepare and coach you. We never contact an employer as you or on your behalf
- We take no fee, commission or referral payment from any employer, trust or agency
The red list is reviewed alongside the WHO list and can change. We confirm the current position before you act on it.
The United States has no equivalent restriction. If the UK route is closed to you or moving too slowly, the US pathway below is fully open.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
NMC registration, step by step.
Realistically nine to eighteen months from starting to working on a ward. The exams can be taken in Ghana, which is the part most people do not realise.
NMC eligibility application
Your Ghanaian qualification and Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana registration assessed against UK requirements.
English language evidence
IELTS Academic or OET at the level the NMC currently requires. Most candidates find OET easier because it is set in a clinical context.
CBT, sat in Ghana
The computer-based test of nursing competence, taken at a Pearson VUE centre here. You do not travel for this.
Your own applications to employers
NHS trusts and private providers, applied to directly by you. This is where the red list makes the method non-negotiable.
Certificate of sponsorship and visa
A Health and Care Worker visa follows a genuine offer. Dependant and salary rules have changed repeatedly, so we verify the current position for your case.
OSCE after arrival, then your PIN
The practical examination is sat in the UK, usually within three months of arriving. Pass it and your full NMC registration is issued.
🇺🇸 United States
NCLEX, then the long wait.
Harder to enter and slower to arrive, but no recruitment restriction, higher pay, and a route that ends in permanent residence rather than a temporary visa.
The Schedule A advantage
Nurses are pre-certified as a shortage occupation, which removes the labour certification stage that slows almost every other employment-based route. It is a genuine structural advantage and few Ghanaian nurses know they have it.
The honest downside
Priority dates retrogress. Your petition can be approved and you still wait years for a visa number to become available. Anyone giving you a confident date for arrival is guessing.
Protect yourself
How nurses get caught.
International nurse recruitment has the worst contract practices of any migration route we advise on. Read anything you are asked to sign twice, and have someone qualified read it a third time.
- Punitive breach clauses. Two and three-year contracts carrying tens of thousands of dollars in penalties if you leave early. These are common, enforceable in some places, and life-altering.
- Large fees for "guaranteed" NHS placement. Given the red list, an agency actively placing you from Ghana is breaching the Code of Practice. Ask how they square that.
- Being charged for exams you can book yourself. CBT, NCLEX and OET are all booked directly by you.
- Care assistant roles sold as nursing roles. Different visa, different pay, different route, and often no path to registration.
- Passport held by a recruiter or employer. Never acceptable, anywhere, for any reason.
- Paying an employer for sponsorship. In the UK it is unlawful for a worker to be charged for a certificate of sponsorship.
What we do, and do not
We coach the route. You walk it.
$3,000 as a standalone pathway, with your credential evaluation included and paid in three instalments across the route. Start with the $150 profile review and we will tell you honestly whether the UK or the US fits your situation better, and credit it in full if you go ahead.
We do
- Assess your qualification against UK and US requirements
- Guide CGFNS, NMC and state board applications
- Plan your CBT, OSCE, NCLEX and OET or IELTS preparation
- Prepare you for employer applications and interviews
- Explain any contract you are asked to sign, in plain terms
- Prepare you for the visa interview
We do not
- Recruit or place you with any employer
- Contact employers on your behalf or as you
- Take any fee or commission from an employer or agency
- Provide legal or immigration advice
- Sit any examination for you
- Promise a date, a salary, or an outcome
Start here
Find out which route actually fits you.
UK or US, and whether your qualification and experience clear the bar for either. That is a factual question, and the profile review answers it.