Brexit and the NHS

Anyone with recent experience of the NHS will have good reason to confirm the generally fine standards of care – and realise that the service depends crucially on health professionals and auxiliaries from throughout the European Union.

Brexit, in other words, means a worse NHS. As with so many other things, that was certainly not on the ballot paper on 23 June, 2016. Confirmation that the NHS faces severe shortages of skilled staff comes with the latest figures on vacancies, with worrying signs that EU nationals are returning to their former homes. Even if Britain could train the sort of numbers required to meet the ever more intense demands on the NHS, that would take years.

At least two things, therefore, need to happen before the crisis becomes more desperate. First, the government has rapidly to conclude the first stage agreement with the EU on the future status of EU nations in the UK, their families and their rights.

Second, the government has to face up to the realities of immigration, and start to explain to the public that they cannot both have extreme reductions in migration and a functioning health service. Ministers do need to start that process of explanation as soon as possible, and they cannot do so while the government clings to a long-discredited migration cap. Lifting the cap is a prerequisite for a healthier NHS.