Yesterday Royal College of Nursing (RCN) General Secretary Beverly Malone condemned the government’s latest scheme to keep overseas junior nurses out of Britain.
Responding to Labour’s plans to restrict international junior nurses coming to the UK, Malone said: ‘International nurses have always been there for the UK in times of need and it beggars belief that they are now being made scapegoats for the current deficits crisis.’
Health Minister Lord Warner announced that the NHS across the UK should no longer recruit junior nurses from abroad.
He said: ‘We are today taking Agenda for Change band five and six nurses off the shortage list.’
Agenda for Change bands five and six nurses have professional experience ranging from a few months to about one and a half years.
Malone warned: ‘Removing nursing from the list of recognised shortage professions is short-termism in the worst possible sense.
‘We know that the vast majority of international nurses are employed in bands five and six, the very bands which are going to be affected.
‘If this proposal goes ahead I guarantee that the effects will be far-reaching and immediate.’
Warner claimed the expanded training programme and better conditions mean the supply of nurses is now healthy, and the manpower shortage has eased.
But the RCN’s Malone rejected this, saying: ‘Over 150,000 nurses are due to retire in the next five to ten years and we will not replace them all with home grown nurses alone.
‘We also have to remember that this blanket ban on international nurses will also apply to the independent sector who are heavily reliant on international nurses to carry on providing care.
‘And they are not in the position of financial crisis the NHS finds itself in.
‘If there is solid evidence to show that we no longer need international nurses in the UK’s healthcare system both now and in the future, then we urge the government to provide it – something they have yet to do.
‘Until that time, the RCN will remain convinced that this is a bad decision for patients, for nurses and for the UK healthcare system as a whole.’
