NHS: EEA Doctors

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble and learned Lord will know that a variety of reports have been published. I am sure that he has taken the opportunity to sign in and read them, which is very welcome, and I encourage all noble Lords to do that. One of the greatest things that we have to do is look at workforce issues. I come back to the point about being able to provide reassurance to people who are thinking of leaving but have not yet done so. I stress that we have more EU and EEA people working in the NHS, which is a very welcome thing and I hope they take comfort from that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, over the weekend a number of Ministers, including the Secretary of State for DExEU, said that these agreements are fine but that nothing is settled until everything is settled. That seems to be not quite the reassurance that everyone would want. Is it possible for the Government to go further and say that they will offer a guarantee to all EU citizens working in the National Health Service that, whatever else happens, they will continue to be welcome? I am conscious that the figures on nurses and midwives are not as good as those for doctors at present and that we are in severe danger of having a short-term gap in the number of nurses and midwives, which would be very serious.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I point the noble Lord to the Prime Minister’s letter, in which she talks about the fact that the rights will be written into law as we leave the EU. He is right to point out the position of nurses and midwives; that is the only category where fewer EU staff are working in the National Health Service year on year. However, as we have talked about many times in the House, new language tests may have had a critical role in that and that is something we are reviewing it to make sure that we can continue to welcome nurses from abroad.