LAST month, our Parliamentary correspondent James Slack wrote a feature headlined "Along the bumpy road to Britain".

In it, he quoted Worcester MP Mike Foster as saying: "People should recognise that without immigration the health service and the economy would collapse. That is the reality of Britain today."

These comments came in the wake of the Romanian asylum abuse scandal, which ultimately claimed the job of Immigration Minister Bev Hughes.

Clearly, there were problems with the process by which Eastern European migrants were having their UK entry bids "rubber-stamped".

Mr Foster was right, however, to highlight the role played by legal migrant workers in this country.

Very little is heard of the many thousands of overseas staff diligently beavering away in the UK, after answering job advertisements from abroad.

Now, it seems 13 psychiatric nurses from India are on their way to work for Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.

The Trust was unable to recruit for these positions locally - despite taking out a full-page advert in a nursing journal.

So they turned their attentions to the many well-qualified and experienced staff in India.

The nurses in question will be arriving in July, to take part in a six-month induction programme before beginning work in January 2005.

Travelling thousands of miles to work in a different culture is not an easy task.

Let's make sure they receive a warm welcome.