The Department of Health has been criticised over a shortage of nurses
and told to "get its act together", by government advisers.
The Migration Advisory Committee also accused the health sector of seeing
immigration as a "get-out-of-jail-free-card" and an answer to the
shortage.
The government said it planned to train more "home-grown
nurses".
The latest report from the committee, despite being highly critical, has
"reluctantly" recommended that nurses from outside Europe should be
made a priority for up to 5,000 visas to work in the UK each year, for the next three
years.
This extends a measure which was introduced last autumn, recognising that
the UK
is short of nurses, and nursing remains on the official "shortage
occupation list".
However, the committee's report criticised the decision to cut nurse
training places in England
by almost a fifth between 2009 and 2013.
Its chairman Prof Sir David Metcalf said: "There is no good reason
why the supply of nurses cannot be sourced domestically.
"There seems to be an automatic presumption that non-EEA skilled
migration provides the health and care sector with a
'get-out-of-jail-free-card'.
"The long-term solution to addressing this shortage is recruiting
and retaining staff by providing sufficient incentive and opportunity."
In England 11,000
nurses from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) are set to be recruited
over the next four years, and the figure rises to 14,000 when the rest of the UK is factored
in, the report said.
It also highlighted a number of other issues, which it believed were
linked to the wider nursing shortage. They included:
- Pay -
The median pay for nurses is £31,500 - which is £7,500 below the median
pay in other graduate occupations.
- Retention
- The nurse turnover rate was 7.8% in 2008-9 but jumped to 9.3% in
2014-15. There has also been a "noticeable spike" in nurses
retiring at 55 - the earliest age at which a nurse can retire on full NHS
pension benefits.
- Population
growth and rising life expectancy increases demand
- The
Francis Report in the wake of the Mid-Staffs scandal recommended higher
nurse-to-patient ratios
The other major area of contention is around training, and Chancellor
George Osborne's decision in his 2015 Spending Review to scrap
nursing bursaries and replace them with loans.
Currently student nurses and midwives receive an annual bursary from the
NHS while they study - which they do not have to pay back. They also do not
have to pay tuition fees.
However, Mr Osborne argues that because the NHS can spend only a finite
amount of money on bursaries each year, it limits the number of places
available for students.
He says replacing bursaries with loans will give more people the
opportunity to study.
Conversely, the Royal College of Nursing argues a fear of debt will put
people off training.
A Department of Health spokesman added: "Overseas staff have always
played a vital role in the NHS.
"We are pleased the [committee] has recommended that nurses remain
on the occupation shortage list, but at the same time, we are already
delivering our plan to train more home-grown nurses."
In 2014-15 8,000 foreign-born nurses were recruited in to the NHS, mainly
from Europe .
Source: BBC
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