PM’S U-turn over visas for medics

THERESA May has finally agreed to relax her hardline immigration rules amid an NHS staffing crisis.

The visa cap the PM introduced while she was Home Secretary, which limited non-eu skilled workers at 20,700 people a year, will no longer include doctors and nurses.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said: “This is a most welcome U-turn on a policy that has undermined the needs of the NHS for far too long.”

Downing Street yesterday confirmed the change will come into effect immediately.

The BMA said it would bring “welcome relief to doctors and patients, who have witnessed first hand the damage that this policy has caused”. A TORY peer is calling for a 1p rise in National Insurance to safeguard our stricken NHS.

Lord Prior, a former health minister under PM David Cameron, says “our most cherished national institution” is at risk due to mounting financial demands and an ageing population.

His call will heap pressure on PM Theresa May, who has repeatedly signalled that she plans to increase NHS funding but has yet to do so.

Lord Prior is the first top Tory to call for the change, which could raise £11billion in 2019. He follows ex-labour PM Gordon Brown, who demanded it in a Mirror article earlier this month.

Lord Prior, 63, told the Mirror: “The pressures are growing by the day. By 2030, the number of people over 65 will increase by a third. Only a serious injection of cash

DAMAGING Theresa May