UK Hospitals To Hire More Number Of Nurses Especially From Three Nations

20 Oct 2015

Home Secretary Theresa May has added nurses would be temporarily added to the Govt shortage occupation list, an official register of jobs that cannot be filled by UK residents.

It means hospitals would be hiring more number of nurses from outside European Union, largely from our  nation, India, neighboring nation )Pakistan and Philippines

Presently, they are restricted by rules that state that only 20,700 visas can be handed out to all overseas skilled workers including solicitor’s doctors, teachers and also scientists.

The Policy also meant that starting next year, overseas nurses would might be deported if they had been here for six years and were earning less than £35,000.

Most of them are still on salaries of £21,000 and £28,000 even after a long period. The govt has said that interim rule change might enable the hospitals to ease the pressure on their wards before winter without much relying on the agency nurses who are expensive.

Earlier today we find care quality commission has blamed the shortage of staff, particularly the senior nurses for very poor standards of care on few wards.  A report based on inspection of 150 hospitals has found out that 74% were not doing enough to meet the basic safety standards.

Jeremy Hunt Health Secretary Added, safe staffing across all hospitals and care homes is a crucial priority. The temporary changes would ensure the NHS has the nurses it requires to deliver the highest standards of care without much relying on rip off staffing agencies that cost the tax payers billions of pounds a year.

We are recruiting more home grown nurses than ever to deliver a truly seven-day NHS, earlier this year the Migration Advisory Committee and the govt’s independent immigration advisers have recommended against adding nurses to shortage occupation list.

But Whitehall insiders have said that panel had been offered insufficient information by the Dept of health about the looming crisis. Janet Davies, General Secretary and chief executive of Royal College of Nursing stated this reversal is a real victory for nurses, health service and most patients.

The govt should now extend this common sense approach to the issue of training as well as retaining more number of nurses in a long term and significantly increase nurse training places so that UK patients will no longer be at mercy of the global workforce trends.

The nursing shortage has been created partly by the govt cutting the number of training posts by 15% since 2010, so there are few coming up from the university.

Hospitals have been under further pressure to hire more number nurses since 2013 when a report into Mid Staffordshire scandal has warned most wards were dangerously understaffed.

Statistics further reveal that 8183 overseas nurses recruited by NHS and the private sector in the year 2014 and 2015 almost twice as many as two years ago. Many of them hired from within the EU, mostly Spain and Portugal were not governed by the same visa restrictions.

The previous week, NHS head has criticized Home Office rules and has pointed out it meant that nurses were less precious than ballet dancers.

He added that the govt needed to join the dots between the immigration policy and several staffing shortages in NHS.

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