NHS leaders have warned that post-Brexit UK immigration rules will make visas difficult to access for care workers, sparking a potential shortage of staff. The NHS Confederation has urged government ministers to show ‘flexibility and pragmatism’ across the new system to prevent the flow of international care workers from drying up.
The NHS Confederation, which represents health organisations across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, fears that care workers from Europe and elsewhere in the world will struggle to qualify for visas under the UK’s strict, post-Brexit immigration system.
Hundreds of thousands of vacancies Senior European policy manager for the Confederation, Kate Ling, told a parliamentary inquiry that there were 112,000 care work vacancies across the sector at any given time and that there are genuinely severe concerns that the new UK immigration rules will make the situation worse.