NHS: Immigration Rules

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend; it cannot be right for a rich country such as ours to recruit nurses from much poorer countries. I will just say that the Philippines, for example, produces more nurses on a deliberate basis than it needs for itself, so that they can go overseas, usually for temporary periods, not permanently. Interestingly, over the last five years, the number of non-EU overseas nurses working in this country has reduced by 41%.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, if we need more home-grown nurses, what are the Government doing to address the flood of nurses leaving the profession, and the appalling attrition rate during training? My noble friend Lord Willis’s report on the Shape of Caring review showed that every year 20% of student nurses do not complete the year, and 40% of nurses do not complete the first five years in the profession. Since it costs £78,000 to train a nurse, is that not a terrible waste of money, and could we not do more to support student nurses to finish their training?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Baroness makes a strong point. The drop-out rate of nurses is between 20% and 30%; it varies hugely from one nursing school to another. I am told that the peak of the drop-out rate is after their first clinical placement, which indicates that the way some nursing schools recruit their students is far from satisfactory. I hope that Health Education England will change the way it remunerates some nursing schools to ensure that they recruit the people with the right qualifications, temperament and vocation before they offer them places.