UK hospitals look to Asia for nurses amid shortage
Hospitals in the UK are turning to Asia to for new nurses after a massive drop in applications from Europe after the “Brexit” vote.
A team of officials from Whittington Hospital flew out to the Philippines on a head-hunting mission earlier this year, hiring 60 new staff who have already begun work in the Highgate hospital.
Whittington chief executive Simon Pleydell said: “We were pleased to recruit 60 nurses from the Philippines last month. We will be continuing to implement our overall recruitment strategy to ensure our workforce plans meet the needs of our services to enable us to continue providing high quality and safe care for our patients.”
Meanwhile, Royal Free Hospital staff have also just got back from hiring 57 nurses from India who are due to start at the Hampstead hospital this summer. Hampstead NHS Trust’s director of nursing, Deborah Sanders, reported “a recruitment campaign in India had resulted in 57 job offers being made: 20 to intensive treatment unit nurses, seven for theatre nurses and the remainder for general nurses”.
There are serious nursing staff shortages across the country this year with new figures showing applications from Europe have plunged 96% since the result of the EU referendum last year.
Six years ago, hospitals significantly reduced nursing numbers during austerity cutbacks. But after a series of high-profile cases of patient neglect, including the Mid Staffs scandal, the government ordered NHS boards to increase the number of nurses.
To fill the gap, more EU nurses were hired. Each foreign nurse costs around £3,000 to settle them in. The Last year, the Royal Free spent more than £13million on agency nursing staff.
Nursing staff shortages also mean crucial finances are spent on bringing in more expensive agency staff. Shirley Franklin, from Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition, said: “The cap on nursing pay is the issue here. There are plenty of people who want to be nurses.”
In a board report, Sanders added: “Brexit was starting to have some impact with some nurses deciding not to move to the UK after all. Few EU nurses had left the Trust to date, but this was felt likely to change in future.”