‘ The UK has a number of clinical skills shortages in many specialist areas.’
ACROSS THE UK, the coronavirus crisis has reaffirmed the sense of gratitude and admiration that we have for the NHS and its key workers.
As lockdown began and people were confined to their own homes, NHS workers worked around the clock to combat the virus, putting themselves at risk to save others.
We know the fight against the virus is far from over. Yet, at a time when the NHS and our social care sector are facing extraordinary pressures and resources are hugely stretched, the Government continues to levy a stealth tax on health trusts.
This is in the form of the Immigration Skills Charge, which – perversely – the Government is levying on our NHS for those overseas workers who are required to fill skills gaps.
Recently, Labour forced the Government to U- turn on its policy of charging health and care workers from overseas to use the NHS they work in and support, the Immigration Health Surcharge.
But so far Ministers are refusing to budge on the Immigration Skills Charge that is paid by their employers. Clawing back funds in this way, from already stretched hospital budgets, is nothing short of an outrage.
The UK has a number of clinical skills shortages in many specialist areas: the reality facing NHS managers, in the absence of any Government skills strategy to respond to that, is that they have no choice but to find clinical specialists from overseas in order to provide the vital services we all rely on.
Nurse shortages here in the UK, for example, have been described as the single biggest challenge facing the NHS by workforce experts, with managers required to fill the posts in order to maintain patient safety. Hospitals are then punished with this tax for the Government’s own workforce failures. It is not the fault of those who work in our NHS that the Government has no viable strategy.
The Labour Party submitted Freedom of Information requests to 224 NHS Hospital Trusts in England, asking how much they are paying back to the Government through the Immigration Skills Charge: the results were staggering. From just the 52 trusts that have so far responded – less than a quarter – we know that nearly £ 16m has been taken out of the NHS via this stealth tax since 2017.
This is an issue here in Yorkshire. Take the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Calderdale Royal Hospital and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. It paid out £ 162,756 in the 2019/ 2020 financial year alone.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals has been forced to pay £ 261,500 since 2017; Mid Yorkshire, which runs a number of hospitals including Pinderfields in Wakefield, £ 126,706; and the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, has paid out £ 426,000 since 2018. We found that in other parts of the country, hospitals were paying out even more.
Labour has pointed out to the Government many times how absurd these charges are and tried to work constructively to change the law to exempt the NHS from having to pay them. The Conservative Government refused to support this move.
Steadily, more and more NHS trusts are publishing the extortionate fees that they have had to pay, allowing us to work out just how much is taken out of the NHS in these charges.
As things stand, NHS trusts pay the skills charge for those coming to work in the NHS from countries outside the EU, but from January 2021 this will include EU countries, too. Therefore, with these charges levied on hospitals only set to increase very significantly after December 31, we are calling on Government to scrap this urgently.
Whilst the Government continues to snub this issue, Labour will continue to stand up for the NHS, our social care sector, and all the frontline workers who have served us so remarkably.
As we continue to combat the coronavirus, we must do all we can to support the NHS, not persist with punitive and illogical measures which take much- needed cash back out of the NHS at a time when it can least be afforded.