NHS needs talented overseas staff

I WAS saddened to read recently that Dido Harding has vowed to end the NHS’s reliance on foreign staff should she become the new head of the health service.

Currently one in seven workers in the NHS comes from overseas and they have worked tirelessly, and at very great personal risk, over the last 18 months treating people ill with Covid. We would not have been able to manage without them. Indeed, Boris Johnson personally thanked the two intensive care nurses who kept watch at his bedside while he was suffering from the virus. One was from Portugal, the other from New Zealand.

I find it offensive that Ms Harding should consider this a priority in her bid for the job, and insulting to all the foreign workers who keep our NHS functioning, some of whom have died in the process of so doing. I hope she is unsuccessful in her effort to succeed Sir Simon Stevens, current head of the NHS.

Her work record thus far is not impressive; the Test and Trace scheme she set up is not seen as a success in spite of the huge amounts of money spent on it, and she faced calls for her resignation in her previous role as chief executive of Talk Talk, when a cyber attack revealed the details of more than 150,000 customers.

I am grateful to all those foreign staff who work in our health service. Ending our reliance on them does not seem like an urgent priority for our hard pressed NHS, and certainly not an indicator that ‘Global Britain’ welcomes people from around the world.

Sally Baldwin Devon