10.09.15
NHS warns immigration rules hurt agency costs by curbing nurse and doctors posts
Current immigration rules are causing rising agency costs, harming patient safety and causing a shortage of nurses and doctors at a “crucial time”, NHS Employers has warned.
In a letter to home secretary Theresa May, the organisation claimed employers are experiencing problems with the current shortage occupation list and the way in which NHS applications are assessed and prioritised.
The body seeks permission to employ the clinical staff recruited from overseas to help address agency costs and improve the quality of patient care.
It claimed that NHS organisations and independent health and social care providers have had a difficult time recruiting trained nursing staff over the last three years, demanding that nurses be added to the shortage occupation list.
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “Hospitals strive constantly to deliver the same high standard of care to patients amid rising demands. Even with government commitment to additional training places for nurses and a focus on retention, we need to employ staff from outside the EU to meet current demand for staff.
“Due to the high demand for immigration certificates in June and July, for example, all of the applications for nurses were rejected.”
He added that, while there was some improvement in August with 200 certificated being issued, there are still “significant numbers” of outstanding applications for entry to the UK to take up nursing posts.
“If trusts are unable to employ these nurses it will impact on their ability to meet safe staffing levels and support the effective provision of services, particularly in the winter months.
“Non-EU nurses are invaluable to the NHS. Whilst we are experiencing a mismatch between supply and demand, we are asking that this is recognised and that nursing be placed on the shortage occupation list for the next two years,” Mortimer said.
The letter also stated that using salary as a “single metric for determining skill, priority and value” is placing the state service as a disadvantage compared to applications from other industries.
NHS Employers will submit evidence on behalf of the NHS to the review commissioned from the Migration Advisory Committee around Tier 2 of the points based immigration system.
It has also offered to meet with May to discuss the letter’s points and develop policies with the government that can satisfy both their commitment around migration and NHS efficiency demands.
The letter was signed and supported by several trusts nationwide.
If a job is one the shortage occupation list, an employer can offer the post to any overseas person without fulfilling the Resident Labour Market Test. In June, the Migration Advisory Committee recommended that paramedics should be added to the list for the first time in order to allow positions to be filled “sensibly” with foreign labour.
Similarly to nurses, paramedics were suffering a nationwide staffing shortage, with around 10.4% of the total workforce being vacant as a result of insufficient training commissioning and funding.
Writing in our July/August edition, Tijen Ahmet, immigration solicitor at SA Law, said the Royal College of Nursing had warned the NHS is “on the road to chaos” as 3,365 nurses currently working in the UK would be hit by a salary threshold for all tier 2 migrants applying for settlement.
The changes, introduced in 2011, are intended to reduce the demand for migrant labour and will “likely hit the NHS the hardest” as the threshold is set as £35,000 per year.
This figure is “significantly higher” than the average wage of nurses, who earn between £21,000 and £28,000 at entry level – forcing many of them out of the UK, ultimately wasting the £20.19m needed to recruit them.
She added: “The introduction of a migrant salary threshold would no doubt dissuade foreign nurses from seeking work in the UK, which could potentially cause labour shortages in the NHS further down the tracks.”
This is despite the fact that plans for a seven-day schedule would call upon nurses in the most senior wards and strong recruitment and training to widen the talent pool and help junior nurses move up the ranks.