The Ethicare Clinical Standard
What we verify, what the boards verify, and when we advise someone not to move yet.
Recruitment has an incentive problem. This is our answer to it.
Agencies are paid when someone takes a job. That is a poor foundation for advice, and clinicians know it — which is why a recruiter saying “this is the right move for you” carries so little weight.
We cannot remove the incentive. What we can do is publish the standard we hold ourselves to, put it in front of senior clinicians who are paid nothing for the placements we make, and let it be checked. A standard you can read is worth more than a promise you cannot.
This document is written for two readers. If you are a clinician, it tells you what we will ask of you and what we will not pretend to have checked. If you are an employer, it tells you exactly what has happened before a CV reaches you, and where each stage of verification sits.
Seven things we establish before anyone is put forward
Screening a CV takes minutes. Establishing whether someone will still be in post in two years takes conversations.
Registration
Where this clinician stands with the relevant board — not whether they intend to apply, but what has been submitted, what is outstanding and what the likely timeline is. Registration is the longest lead time in any move, and the most common cause of a placement collapsing late.
Not yet: documents unobtainable, or a pathway that has not been confirmed.Motivation
Why this move, why now, and whether the reason will still hold in eighteen months. A move towards something tends to hold better than a move away from something — though people leave for good reasons too, and we do not treat that as a mark against anyone.
Not yet: a decision made in the middle of a crisis at home or at work.Salary
What they need, what the relevant agreement or scale pays, and whether those two numbers meet. We name the framework and let the employer confirm the package. If the gap cannot close, we say so before anyone interviews.
Not yet: an expectation the market cannot meet.Family
Who else is moving, and whether they are moving willingly. Partner employment, children’s schooling and, where relevant, the health requirements that apply to every member of an application. The most common reason a placement fails in year one has nothing to do with the job.
Not yet: a partner who has not agreed, or a health question unresolved.Location
Whether they have understood the place, not just the country. Isolation, distance from a base hospital, the cost of the housing market, what a weekend looks like. Where another region is the better answer for them, we say that too.
Not yet: an expectation formed from photographs.Timeline
When they can realistically start, tested against notice periods, registration, visa processing and the school year. A start date that only works if nothing goes wrong is not a start date.
Not yet: a timeline with no room in it.Relocation
Whether the practical move is fundable and deliverable — shipping, pets, housing at the other end, the first months before a first salary. Readiness here is what separates an accepted offer from an arrival.
Not yet: no plan for the first eight weeks.Applied to the profession, not to a template
The seven dimensions are constant. The regulatory logic behind them is not: a sonographer, a psychologist and a consultant radiologist face different pathways, and we never force one profession’s rules onto another. Each profession guide sets out its own.
All profession guides →What we check ourselves, and what we do not claim as ours
Recruiters routinely describe board and immigration checks as though they carried them out. We do not. The distinction matters to an employer relying on it, so here it is in full.
Ethicare verifies
- Professional references, taken up directly and in writing.
- Current good standing, confirmed with the clinician’s existing regulator.
- Employment history and the reasons behind each move.
- The seven dimensions above, through interview rather than paperwork.
- Where the registration and visa application stand, at any moment, and what is outstanding.
- That the clinician has read the version of the destination, including what is difficult about it.
The boards and the immigration authority verify
- Qualifications and eligibility to register.
- Scope of practice and any conditions on registration.
- Identity.
- Police and criminal record checks.
- Health, including the acceptable standard of health that applies to every member of an application.
- The right to work.
Sometimes the answer is that this is not the right year. Registration is not ready, a partner is not ready, or a health question needs resolving before anyone should be making plans.
When that is the case we say so, to the clinician and to the employer, and we accept the lost placement. An agency that cannot afford to say “not yet” is not giving advice — and an employer who is handed that risk pays for it in year one, not us.
Two senior clinicians hold this standard
Two practising senior clinicians advise Ethicare. They do not work on placements and are not paid for any that we make. Their role is to hold this standard, review it, and tell us when it is not good enough.
Both are minor shareholders in Ethicare. We state that plainly rather than describe them as independent, because a standard that depends on a reader not knowing something is not a standard. What matters for the advice on this page is the narrower point: neither has any interest in whether one particular clinician takes one particular job.
Prof Alastair Sutcliffe
Professor of Paediatrics, University College London, and Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Dr Jude A. Oben
Consultant Hepatologist, King’s College London.
- What our advisers do
- Reviews and approves this standard. Tests it against how clinical practice and regulation work. Provides a senior clinical view on unusual cases where we ask for one.
- What our advisers do not do
- They do not screen candidates, review CVs, sit on interviews or approve individual placements. Presenting them as operational would be untrue, and would make everything else on this page harder to believe.
- Declared interest
- Both advisers are minor shareholders in Ethicare Resourcing. Neither is remunerated per placement, and neither has a financial interest in whether any individual clinician accepts any individual role. Ethicare does not recruit into the NHS.
- Founder accountability
- Sophie Careem, our founder, is accountable for applying this standard day to day. She spent her clinical-services career in NHS service improvement and transformation at the Royal Free London, and relocated to New Zealand herself in 2023. More on why Ethicare exists →
A standard nobody reviews is a marketing claim
Annually, by our clinical advisers. The review date and version are published at the top of this page so you can see when it was last tested.
Any material change to registration requirements, immigration policy or the health thresholds that apply to applicants brings the relevant section forward for review immediately.
If you are a clinician or an employer and something here does not match your experience of working with us, we want to know. That is the only way this stays honest. Tell us →
The standard is the promise. The work is where it shows.
If you are hiring, our employers page sets out how this works in practice across a search. If you are considering a move, start with the profession guides — each one applies this standard to its own regulator.