This year, we're staying in rainy England

SINCE arriving two months ago, the ten Spanish nationals who have come over to Britain to nurse North-East heart patients have become minor local celebrities. Ward sister Deborah Hipkins has been in charge of the Spanish party since April, and she's been surprised at the number of strangers who have stopped them in the street to wish them well.

"It's amazing really. When we have taken them to places they need to know about, like the supermarket, we have had loads of people coming up to them and saying 'welcome to Teesside'," she says.

Because of extensive media coverage, the nurses have been greeted everywhere they go. "They have become minor celebrities, which their families back home are amazed about," says Deborah, who is a ward sister at the James Cook University Hospital heart unit.

The nurses, who come from as far afield as Barcelona and the Canary Isles, are happy with how staff and patients at the hospital have reacted to them.

While they have satisfied hospital bosses that their level of English is good enough to work in the UK, all of them acknowledge that they still have some way to go before they are fully fluent. Five of the nurses plan to enrol in intensive English classes at Middlesbrough College to boost their standard of spoken English.

But the patients don't seem to mind English spoken with a distinctive Spanish accent. Some are pleased to have someone to talk to about their experiences of "typically Spanish" places they have visited, like Benidorm and Torremolinos.

"The people here have been so nice. The patients are very patient with us," says Lidia Gestosa Pecillin, 25, who is from Badejoz in the south-west of Spain and knows enough English to recognise a pun when she hears one.

In fact, with hindsight, Deborah thinks people may have been too nice.

"For the next lot of Spanish nurses, I think we need to be tougher and start correcting their English right from the beginning."

Despite some concerns about recruiting nurses from overseas - and a fairly negative recent television documentary about Spanish nurses at a London hospital - the experience on Teesside so far suggests that the opening up of nursing and medical posts to more European Union applicants could be a real success.

Certainly, the South Tees hospital trust has decided to go back to Spain in search of more of the cardiothoracic nurses, who are needed to staff the expanding hospital's heart unit.

There were worries that, after an expensive recruitment campaign in Spain, that the first crop of nurses might not have wanted to stay on. But far from feeling homesick for Spain - where temperatures in Madrid are currently around the 32 degree C mark (90 degrees F), the nurses seem to be thriving.

"I have no regrets about coming here," says Ainara Navarro Toquero, 23, from Barcelona. Like some of the others, she has previously worked in Italy and already had a taste of a foreign culture.

Apart from the difficulty in getting full-time nursing posts in the Spanish health service - compared to the two year contracts that the Middlesbrough trust has given the new recruits - the emphasis on teamwork in the NHS appeals to the new nurses.

Angel Segura, 28, from Gran Canaria, who is an experienced cardiothoracic theatre nurse, says he is "impressed" by the high staffing levels and the way that nurses work together as part of a multi-disciplinary team. Asked whether he intends to stay, Angel is emphatic. "I am very, very positive about being here. I think the needs of the patient are cared for very well in England."

Sara Del Pozo Moreno, 22, who is from Madrid says the role played by nurses, doctors and health care assistants in England is very different from back home, where there is a stricter hierarchy between medical and nursing staff.

"Everyone works as a team here. The nurse is very much part of that team and there are always doctors around, not like in Spain. If you need a doctor in the afternoon over there, you have to bleep them"

Sara has volunteered to go back to Madrid next month with a team from the Middlesbrough hospital in search of more heart nurses.

"I think many Spanish nurses are interested in coming to England. I have a friend who is working as a nurse in Italy who would like to come, but first she needs to take some English classes," says Sara.

Deborah, who has just gone on maternity leave after spending the last two months looking after her fledglings, is filled with admiration for her new Spanish colleagues.

"I think we have been extremely lucky to get the ten people we have got. They are all committed, driven individuals," says Deborah, who has been amazed at how quickly they have fitted in with their new colleagues.

"We have had a very positive feedback from the staff. They have been extremely impressed by the clinical skills and knowledge they have."

There had been some concern that training standards might be different between Spain and the UK, but the group on Teesside has demonstrated that they have the same credentials as their English colleagues.

"Their clinical knowledge has not been a problem. They have gone through the same standard of training as we have, it's just that everything is in English and that slows things up," says Deborah.

The hospital is already thinking about the next crop of Spanish recruits and the plan is to place an even greater emphasis on language skills and get them out on the wards at an earlier stage.

The nurses I met were very complimentary about the induction programme, which included a basic introduction to essential things like shopping, public transport and registering with a GP. More difficult to get used to is English food - with the exception of the "lovely" chocolate - and our "peculiar" meal times. Ainara's parents were so worried whether their daughter was eating properly they sent her a whole cured ham through the post. It disappeared very quickly.

Spanish people are used to eating late in the evening and, when they can, as many of the nurses as possible get together around a plate of paella, Spanish omelette or tripe. To say thank you to the trust, the nurses recently invited everyone involved in their induction programme to a Spanish feast, prepared by the students.

"It was really delicious," says Deborah, who says she feels that she has made ten new friends.

The only thing that can sour relations now is if Spain goes on to win the World Cup Final...