15.01.16
Target for ‘home-grown staff’ means thousands of overseas nurses denied jobs
Thousands of overseas nurses were denied permission to work in the UK last year despite the current nursing shortage in the health service, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has found.
Around 2,340 applications by trusts for Certificate of Sponsorship – needed when an organisation takes on a nurse from an area outside the EEA – were refused between April and November 2015, statistics from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) indicated.
In one trust in East Lancashire, all 300 applications were refused.
Director of nursing at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, Catherine Morgan, told the BBC the situation was “frustrating” because they had been prevented from hiring new staff despite the need to run the hospital safely.
“We had the opportunity to recruit from India and the Philippines and we had nurses keen to come over, but haven’t been able to bring them over,” she said.
The figures cut off just before health secretary Jeremy Hunt temporarily lifted restrictions on recruiting overseas nurses to aid existing shortages, adding the profession to the government’s shortage occupation list.
According to the RCN, the data showed the extent of the impact this cap was having on the amount of nurses available to work in the UK. The royal college argued this must be considered in the MAC’s final recommendation as to whether nursing should remain on the shortage occupation list.
RCN chief executive and general secretary, Janet Davies, said: “The number one priority for all health care providers is making sure they have enough staff to deliver safe care to patients. These figures show that when nursing is not on the list, many trusts are unable to recruit enough nurses, which could have an impact on patient care.
“There is still a workforce crisis in the NHS, and until enough nurses are trained in the UK, health organisations still need to be able to recruit nurses from overseas. With the cap on spending on agency nurses now in effect, this is more urgent than ever.”
The Home Affairs Select Committee has also previously slammed the government for its migration cap, claiming it could have been singlehandedly responsible for the crisis in nurse recruiting, “effectively crippling the NHS over winter”.
Responding to the figures, a Department of Health (DH) spokesman said the MAC is currently reviewing the list and is keeping in mind that staffing is a priority – but argued that the government wants more “home-grown staff” instead.
“There are already more than 8,500 more nurses on our wards since 2010 and 50,000 more nurses in training,” said the DH spokesman.
“We want more home-grown staff in the NHS and our recent changes to student funding will create up to 10,000 more nursing, midwifery and allied health professional training places by 2020.”