by LAUREN CODLING
THE UK has been urged “not to prejudice” the healthcare systems of developing countries, including India, by hiring doctors and nurses from those countries to tackle an understaffed NHS.
Senior medical professionals have also said the government must acknowledge the benefits of immigration to the country’s health service.
Their comments came as it was reported that the NHS would begin a global recruitment drive to employ thousands of foreign nurses.
An interim report leaked to The Times on Tuesday (7) said a target to recruit 5,000 foreign nurses every year until 2024 to fill a 40,000 shortfall had been set.
Medical staff from India, the Philippines and Ireland were likely to be targeted, the report added.
Professor Mayur Lakhani, president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, told Eastern Eye: “Taking staff from abroad should not prejudice the healthcare systems of developing countries unless there is a government-to-government agreement.”
He added: “International recruitment is complex and may not be a panacea for providing the workforce needed for primary care.”
Echoing his views, Ramesh Mehta, president of British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), agreed that recruitment must be “ethical”.
Talking about the shortage of healthcare workers across both the UK and India, Mehta suggested that nurses were “recruited on a learn and return basis. This will help UK shortages and India will have better trained nurses.”
Dr Kailash Chand OBE, vice-president of the British Medical Association, also urged the government to acknowledge the benefits to the NHS from immigration.
According to him, the NHS could be short of 250,000 healthcare staff by 2030 unless urgent and sustained action is taken to improve recruitment and retention.
That number could reach 350,000 if the “overstretched” NHS continues to lose staff and cannot attract skilled workers from abroad, Chand added.
“As things stand, this problem will only get worse over the next decade, putting access and quality of care at risk,” he told Eastern Eye. “The existing immigration policies in the UK are completely out of sync with the demands of the NHS.
“The government must acknowledge the benefits to the NHS from immigration. Relaxing migration policy for the NHS would be one step in the right direction,” he said.
In response to a query from Eastern Eye, the Home Office clarified it had renewed policies last June so that more overseas highly-skilled doctors and nurses would be able to come to the UK. The move meant there would be no restriction on the numbers of doctors and nurses who could be employed through the Tier 2 visa route, it said.
At the time, home secretary Sajid Javid said efforts had been made to find a solution to “increased demand and to support our essential national services”.
It was implemented after it emerged many foreign doctors had been ordered to return to their native countries after they were refused visas by the Home Office.
According to reports, one doctor had to go back to India after he was unable to obtain a certificate of sponsorship from his employer because the UK had already reached the cap on non-European Union workers.
Another GP trainee from Pakistan had to return after she was advised to apply for a tier 2 visa in her native country. However, she claimed her visa had been rejected multiple times by the ministerial department.
Dr Chand also highlighted the impact of the immigration health surcharge, which non-EU nurses are required to pay.
The surcharge, introduced in 2015, requires individuals who hold a UK visa for more than six
months – but not settlement – to pay £400 annually to access health services.
“Given the contribution overseas nurses already make to our health services and the fact that they pay tax and national insurance, it is morally unjustifiable that they should pay extra to access care,” Dr Chand said.
Rohit Sagoo is a children’s nurse and the founder of British Sikh Nurses. He said the move to recruit more overseas nurses is welcome, although he remarked a large increase of staff shortages was due to the uncertainty of Brexit.
“This leaves the NHS with little choice but to search for qualified and experienced nurses from outside the EU,” he said.
“Though this recruitment practice has been present for quite some years, it is imperative that
vital gaps in the service are filled.”
Further details of the report revealed by The Times included acknowledgment that “shortages in nursing are the single biggest and most urgent” problem and recruitment missions undertaken by individual hospitals would be centralised on a regional level, with national guidance on hiring overseas staff.
Dido Harding, the chair of NHS Improvement, confirmed the interim plan was still being written and would be published shortly.
“Staff are the NHS’s biggest asset, and to deliver on the promises of the Long-Term Plan, the whole NHS must do more to support the frontline as it faces record patient demand,” Harding added.
“Focusing on our people, their working environment, career development and ways of working isn’t a nice to have, it’s critical to the success of the NHS”
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