A United Kingdom government code of practice restricting National Health Service recruitment of nurses from developing countries may not be succeeding in its aim of reversing a potentially dangerous “brain drain”, according to a recent report. Taking the example of South Africa, the OECD found that, after a fall in nurses leaving for the UK from 1,460 in 1999 to 1,086 in 2000, numbers shot up by 45% in 2001 to reach 2,114 – two and a half times as many as in 1998.