Hospital staffing levels under threat due to Brexit
Crisis could be on cards according to C4
STAFFING levels at hospitals in Leicester will be put under pressure by our decision to leave the EU.
This is according to Channel Four’s Dispatches programme which lifted the lif on the issue in their latest episode.
Already, a growing number of EU nurses have left the NHS and more are thinking of doing so, according to the programme’s journalists.
Some medical staff told the programme they no longer felt welcome or valued in the UK.
The programme, which was broadcast at 8pm on Monday night, reports that 28 nurses who travelled from EU countries to work at Leicester’s hospitals quit their posts in the weeks following last year’s vote to withdraw from the EU.
The programme argues this pattern is repeated across England and Wales and predicts the staffing crisis is the greatest ever faced by the NHS.
It reports the NHS workforce is increasingly international with about 140,000 of the 1.2 million NHS staff coming from overseas, including more than 40,000 from EU states.
Julie Smith, head of nursing for Leicester’s hospitals, told Dispatches: “We did have 440 nurses from across the European countries.
“Following the Brexit vote we saw 28 of those nurses leave, within probably around six weeks of Brexit.
“It’s become almost impossible for us to recruit nurses from Europe.
“Post-Brexit, we’re seeing three, four, five nurses applying now, whereas before we had hundreds of nurses applying.
“We recruit all of the UK nurs- es that we possibly can. The nurses aren’t there to recruit. So we have to go and recruit them from elsewhere.”
Asked on the programme how the departure of further EU citizen nurses would affect the city’s hospitals, she said: “That will make it challenging to staff, all our wards and departments which would mean we’d have to close wards.
“Because we can’t run wards if the staffing isn’t safe to do so. So it could absolutely impact on next winter.”
Dispatches also reported a 90 per cent reduction in the number of EU residents applying to work in the NHS.
It found NHS trusts increasingly looking to countries such as India and the Philippines to recruit new staff.
Hiring from Asia costs about £5,000 per nurse to the NHS, twice as much as a European recruit, the show reported.
The Government is promising more UK-trained NHS staff including up to 10,000 nurses, according to the programme.
De Montfort University trains 500 nurses a year but cannot expand because the city’s hospitals are unable to provide additional work placements, Dispatches reported.
Chris Whitney Cooper, from De Montfort University, said: “We train the nurses and midwives for the local workforce.
“About 500 nurses a year come out of university and actu- ally work locally.
“It’s not that we’re not trying, but quality is paramount and I don’t want to increase the volume of nurses on the course if the quality of the nurse isn’t as good. “
The Department of Health told Channel Four: “We are continuing to invest in the frontline – there are over 11,600 more doctors and over 13,400 more nurses on our wards since May 2010.
“We want to give more domestic students the chance to be doctors and nurses, given the enduring popularity of these professions as careers.
“There are 30,000 students training to be doctors and over 52,000 training to be nurses.”