Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to increase the number of NHS staff recruited from EU member states after Brexit.

The Government recognises the need to be able to recruit effectively from abroad and the Immigration White Paper, The UK’s future skills-based immigration system, published in December 2018, sets out the foundation for a single immigration system, where it is workers’ skills that matter, not where they come from. This system will streamline the high-skilled visa route, by removing the Resident Labour Market Test and the Tier 2 Visa Cap. The Home Office is undertaking a programme of engagement to discuss the proposed measures with colleagues across Government and industry, to develop a future immigration system that works for the whole of the United Kingdom.

The Government wants to support the National Health Service in expanding international recruitment more widely, as this clearly has a role to play to meeting staffing shortages, especially in the short term. Recruitment of doctors and nurses is the responsibility of individual NHS organisations, a number of which do actively recruit from overseas, including from countries in the European Union. However, we also recognise the need to boost our domestic workforce as well. The NHS Long Term Plan sets out a vital strategic framework to ensure that, over the next 10 years, the NHS will have the staff it needs so that nurses and doctors are working in a supportive culture that allows them to provide the expert compassionate care they are committed to providing. Details of this will be explored more fully in the forthcoming Interim NHS People Plan.

The Government has taken steps to ensure that EU citizens can continue to come and work in the NHS once we have left the EU. In March 2019, we put in place legislation that ensures the continued recognition of qualifications from EU countries by all professional regulators covering the health and social care sectors. This means that EU citizens will continue to be able to come and practice in the UK once we have left the EU, even if we leave without a deal.