Nursing leader tells parties immigration system must meet needs of patients, not arbitrary pledges
A fairer immigration system can help protect patients and ensure the UK remains attractive to talented nursing staff around the world, the UK’s nursing leader has said as she sets out the election hopes of half a million health and care staff.
The college makes the call as the Conservative Party sets out its changes to the immigration system for nurses and doctors, including maintaining the immigration health surcharge, but reducing the costly visa application fee.
The sustained failure to grow enough domestic nurses has left all four parts of the UK with nursing shortages and put patient care at risk. Nursing staff from overseas have become key in ensuring services can continue to run. Although over-reliance on international workforce is not sustainable in the longer term.
The Royal College of Nursing is now warning the next government that it must build an immigration system that prioritises the needs of the growing population across health and care, not arbitrary political pledges.
The college says that the current immigration system is failing patients, and nursing staff from overseas.
In a submission to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) the RCN calls for the ‘purposefully hostile environment and culture’ to be ‘brought to an urgent end before our nursing shortage crisis is made worse.’
Unethical rules are making life difficult for nursing staff from overseas wanting to come to the UK and create unnecessary barriers which are wasting the time and resources of employers.
All parties are being asked by the RCN to pledge to replace the salary threshold of £30,000 with recognition of occupations of high public value, scrap the immigration health surcharge and overhaul the costly application processes that leave nurses from outside the EU thousands of pounds out of pocket.
Nurses are currently exempt from the salary threshold but the RCN is calling for it to be replaced entirely.
New Conservative proposals don’t address the workforce shortage in non-NHS settings, nor the wider workforce needs in social care. They also fail to clearly address the salary threshold and move the immigration health surcharge from an upfront payment, to one which comes out of nurses’ pay packets monthly. Reductions to visa fees also won’t apply to those working outside the NHS in social care. The college says this is unacceptable.
On the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register, which also covers registered nurses working in social care, there are 73,308 nurses from outside Europe in the UK, making up more than one in ten of all registrants.
The RCN says alongside credible workforce strategies that grow a sustainable domestic nursing workforce for health and care services, nursing staff from overseas must not be prevented from coming here.
Under the immigration health surcharge, a nurse from outside the EU must pay £400 per family member, per year of their visa to use the NHS. For a nurse with three children, this would cost £1,600 per year. The college want this scrapped on day one of the next government taking office.
The college is also urging the next government to adequately risk assess the effects that new post-Brexit immigration rules might have on the nursing workforce from the EU and patient care, especially the impact on the social care workforce.
The RCN’s UK General Election manifesto calls on party leaders to tackle workforce shortages in all four countries by securing and extending safe staffing legislation. This already exists in Scotland and Wales.
The manifesto also sees the RCN reiterate its demands for a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal.
- In England, the College has renewed its call for an additional £1 billion per year to be put into nursing higher education to support tuition and living costs for an additional 24,000 undergraduate nurses. Since 2016 and the removal of the bursary, applications and accpetances to study nursing have fallen 29% and 9% respectively.
- In Scotland, the RCN is calling on the next government to provide adequate funding to health and care services so that providers can meet their duties under the ground breaking safe staffing act.
- In Wales, the RCN say that to protect services funding from the EU must be replaced in full by the UK Government via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
- In Northern Ireland, the RCN is demanding urgent action on nurse staffing and pay, just one day after Northern Ireland nurses voted to take industrial action, including strike action.
During the election, the RCN is urging nursing staff to challenge and ask questions of prospective parliamentary candidates and has produced an election member toolkit.
Launching the manifesto, Dame Donna Kinnair, Chief Executive and General Secretary of the RCN, said:
“A failure to grow enough of our own nursing staff has left services all over the UK with shortages and it is patients who are paying the price.
“Proposals announced by the Conservative Party might bring positive headlines today, but we are clear that much more must be done to make the immigration system work for patients and the nursing staff from overseas who want to come and fill the workforce gaps of our own creation.’
“It is a particular disgrace that nursing staff from outside Europe, who already pay tax and national insurance, must fork out again to use the very NHS that they help to keep running – this is none other than a tax on nursing.
“‘Social care and the health service are deeply reliant on the work of nurses from overseas, in no small part thanks to the abject failure of successive governments to plan effectively for the nursing workforce and train and educate enough domestic nursing staff. Immigration rules post-Brexit must prioritise the safe staffing of both these areas.
‘Our manifesto is a blue-print for the whole of the UK which in plain English tells politicians what they need to do to safeguard nursing and patient care across the UK.
“We are urging each of our half a million members to challenge their local candidates and ask them what they and their parties will do for nursing and health and care.”
Ends
Notes to editors
NMC data as as March 2019 recorded 103,985 nurses and midwives on its register from both inside and outside the EEA. EEA 33,135. Outside EEA 73,308
England’s nurse vacancies grew 5,289 (10.9%) to a record 43,617 since the last election with applications and acceptances to study nursing falling 29% and 9% respectively since the bursary was cut in 2016 -
Immigration Health Surcharge doubled in January 2019
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is the voice of nursing across the UK and is the largest professional union of nursing staff in the world. The RCN promotes the interest of nurses and patients on a wide range of issues and helps shape healthcare policy by working closely with the UK Government and other national and international institutions, trade unions, professional bodies and voluntary organisations.
For more information, contact the RCN press office at 020 7647 3633 or email mediateamhq@rcn.org.uk
