New NHS rules: Overseas nurses not wanted?

Yesterday, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) released new research revealing that changes to immigration rules that will see the number of nurses in the UK fall dramatically, which, the RCN have argued will compromise patient safety whilst simultaneously costing the health service millions.

New rules proposed by Government will mean people from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), and let’s be clear that predominantly means non-white people, must be earning £35,000 or more before they are allowed to stay in the UK.

In a globalised world nation's that allow any form of subtle or not so subtle xenophobia to dominate their immigration policy will see their economics suffer in more ways than one. This along with the demand of study visa's for foreign students has already cost the country millions.

These new rules for the NHS, set to be introduced in 2017 will break many families apart, as foreign nationals married to British citizens will be forced to leave the country. The RCN has pointed out that many nurses will be forced to leave the UK. The effect of this will see many UK hospitals with nothing to show for the millions of pounds spent on recruitment and training.

These race focused policies do not come cheap to the tax payer either. The RCN has calculated more than 3,000 nurses currently working in the UK will potentially be affected. The recruitment cost to the NHS for these nurses is £20.19million, money down the drain, if they are forced to leave the UK.

Diversity in the NHS workforce is the jewel in the public sector crown, and our nation's health is immeasurably improved as a result of the presence of foreign born medical staff.

Given the huge shortage of home grown nurses we can expect to see acute shortages in our hospitals and A&E departments. This at a time when the NHS is under acute stress because of funding cuts that can only make a bad situation worse.

In the meantime we continue spending millions recruiting overseas nurses who will work for our health system only for a short period of time. This represents a monumental waste of valuable NHS time and resources.

Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive & General Secretary of the RCN said: "Due to cuts to nurse training places, trusts are being forced into relying on overseas recruitment, as well as temporary staff, just to provide safe staffing. A cap on agency spending will make one of these options more difficult, and these immigration rules will limit the other."

"The immigration rules for health care workers will cause chaos for the NHS and other care services. At a time when demand is increasing, the UK is perversely making it harder to employ staff from overseas. The NHS has spent millions hiring nurses from overseas in order to provide safe staffing levels. These rules will mean that money has just been thrown down the drain. Without a change to these immigration rules the NHS will continue to pay millions of pounds to temporarily rent nurses from overseas."

Lee jasper