Refugee and Asylum Seekers Centre for Healthcare Professionals’ Education

REACHE North West supports refugee and asylum seeker doctors, nurses and allied health professionals on a comprehensive pathway into NHS employment. 

REACHE is the only UK programme to currently offer refugee and asylum seekers a complete in-house pathway to registration with the General Medical Council (GMC) and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

The REACHE programme offers  

• English language teaching for the Occupational English Test (OET)
• Fully integrated programme of language, communications skills and clinical teaching
• PLAB 1 and PLAB 2 exam support required for GMC registration
• Pastoral package including counselling, coaching, housing and employment support
• Clinical programme led by experienced GPs and hospital consultants
• 12 module professionalism training packages for international medical graduates
• Cultural adaptation support
• Outreach referrals for people and their families.

Est 2003 and funded by Health Education England.

Since inception until 2022:

• 612 refugee and asylum seeker healthcare professionals supported
• 289 REACHE refugee and asylum seeker doctors work in the NHS
• Over 500 REACHE refugee and asylum seekers work as GPs, associate specialists, consultants, speciality trainees, nurses, lab technicians, radiographers or dentists in the NHS. 
• 87% of people in the programme are from Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Libya, Yemen, Eritrea, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan

It takes anywhere from 3 months to 2.5 years to retrain from REACHE programme to employment within the NHS.

By training refugee and asylum seekers, the REACHE programme has saved the public purse £6.5 million.

We partner with:

• Health Education England
• NHS Northern Care Alliance
• University of Manchester

REACHE has been supporting health professionals since 2003, is hosted at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust and is funded by Health Education England.

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