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Project Fear?
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Record numbers of EU nurses are leaving the NHS, and the number of new nurses from EU nations has dropped by over 90% since the EU referendum, according to the Royal College of Nursing.
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Have predictions about Brexit's impact on healthcare proved unfounded, or was it all doom-and-gloom "project fear" scaremongering?
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Have predictions about Brexit's impact on healthcare proved unfounded, or was it all doom-and-gloom "project fear" scaremongering?
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any EU nurse - you are saying effectively "start now and it is a fixed term contract" that is they will get chucked out when the law changes
all other nursing contracts in the EU are open ended
we advertised fixed term contracts about ten years ago
and I said for gods sake you are wasting my time
no one is gonna turn up
actually of the six - two or three did and declined to leave open ended jobs to work for us for a year possibly renewable ....
there was no pay hike either
and I said for chrissakes do you want people to come and work here
( oh the admin is insisting blah blah blah )
all other nursing contracts in the EU are open ended
we advertised fixed term contracts about ten years ago
and I said for gods sake you are wasting my time
no one is gonna turn up
actually of the six - two or three did and declined to leave open ended jobs to work for us for a year possibly renewable ....
there was no pay hike either
and I said for chrissakes do you want people to come and work here
( oh the admin is insisting blah blah blah )
'Only 96 nurses joined the NHS from other European nations in December 2016 – a drop from 1,304 in July, the month after the referendum.'
Typical Guardian. Misleading the gullible.
I wonder why they didn't show us the corresponding figures for 2015, 2014, etc.
It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that less people leave their home and their country to start a new life at Christmas time.
Typical Guardian. Misleading the gullible.
I wonder why they didn't show us the corresponding figures for 2015, 2014, etc.
It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that less people leave their home and their country to start a new life at Christmas time.
Leaving aside the question just for a moment (and I will return to it I promise) there is an interesting conundrum at play here. According to the NHS, of the 33,000 nurses recorded as joining hospitals in 2015/16, just over 6,000 held an EU nationality other than British. Some 1,750 were Spanish, 1,300 Italian and nearly 1,000 Portuguese.
So how is it that these other EU nations can be denuded of their nursing staff in fairly large numbers, whereas the UK cannot cope without importing loads? It is clear the UK trains far fewer nurses than it needs (preferring instead to rely on imported labour). But do Italy, Spain and Portugal train far more nurses than they require? If so, why on earth do they do that? Is it part of EU policy which sees some nations training skilled staff to be sent to other nations (rather like Cuba has been forced to do in recent years)?
But back to the question. There are two aspects which cause the number of nurses from the EU working in the UK to change – the numbers arriving and the numbers leaving. The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) suggests that the biggest factor in the reduction of those arriving since last summer is the introduction, last spring, of language tests (which has nothing to do with Brexit). “This is the first time in years that we have seen a drop-off [in EU nurses on the register],” said NMC chief executive and registrar Jackie Smith. She said it was unclear whether the drop in EU nurses on the register was a result of fewer people applying because they were deterred by the new [language] rules, or because a “significant number” of those tested did not pass first time.
Meanwhile, the number of EU nurses leaving the register every month has increased slightly over the same time, from 257 leaving in July, to 318 in December.
In any case, according to the NMC, the combined effect [of fewer arriving and slightly more leaving] has meant the total number of EU nurses registered with the NMC shrank towards the end of the year – from 38,992 in September to 38,661 by December. A reduction of 0.85% is not quite the sensational “mass haemorrhaging” (nice term when used in connection with medical matters) of foreign staff from the UK that the Grauniad had in mind when explaining to its gullible readers what the Brexit vote was responsible for. And I didn’t see any mention in their report (or that of The so-called Independent) of the (highly desirable) language tests which seem to be causing most of the decrease.
So how is it that these other EU nations can be denuded of their nursing staff in fairly large numbers, whereas the UK cannot cope without importing loads? It is clear the UK trains far fewer nurses than it needs (preferring instead to rely on imported labour). But do Italy, Spain and Portugal train far more nurses than they require? If so, why on earth do they do that? Is it part of EU policy which sees some nations training skilled staff to be sent to other nations (rather like Cuba has been forced to do in recent years)?
But back to the question. There are two aspects which cause the number of nurses from the EU working in the UK to change – the numbers arriving and the numbers leaving. The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) suggests that the biggest factor in the reduction of those arriving since last summer is the introduction, last spring, of language tests (which has nothing to do with Brexit). “This is the first time in years that we have seen a drop-off [in EU nurses on the register],” said NMC chief executive and registrar Jackie Smith. She said it was unclear whether the drop in EU nurses on the register was a result of fewer people applying because they were deterred by the new [language] rules, or because a “significant number” of those tested did not pass first time.
Meanwhile, the number of EU nurses leaving the register every month has increased slightly over the same time, from 257 leaving in July, to 318 in December.
In any case, according to the NMC, the combined effect [of fewer arriving and slightly more leaving] has meant the total number of EU nurses registered with the NMC shrank towards the end of the year – from 38,992 in September to 38,661 by December. A reduction of 0.85% is not quite the sensational “mass haemorrhaging” (nice term when used in connection with medical matters) of foreign staff from the UK that the Grauniad had in mind when explaining to its gullible readers what the Brexit vote was responsible for. And I didn’t see any mention in their report (or that of The so-called Independent) of the (highly desirable) language tests which seem to be causing most of the decrease.
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