Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the impact on the ability of the NHS to recruit experienced staff from the EU of the UK leaving the EU without a deal; and what plans they have to make up any shortfall in numbers of staff.

The Government recognises the need for the National Health Service 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.

The Government has taken steps to ensure that European Union 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 United Kingdom once we have left the EU, even if we leave without a ‘deal’.

The NHS Long Term Plan and interim People Plan have both set 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 have the time they need to care, working in a supportive culture that allows them to provide the expert compassionate care they are committed to providing. The interim People Plan sets out how part of this will be made up from an expansion of international recruitment of NHS staff.