New report shows plunge in number of EU nurses registering in UK

The supply of EU nurses coming to work in the NHS has fallen precipitously since last year's Brexit vote.

Figures were obtained by the Health Foundation from the Nursing and Midwifery Council have shown a 96 percent drop in the number of nurses from the EU registering to practise in the UK since July last year.

The figure for July 2016 – a month after the country voted to leave the EU – stood at 1,304, but this had fallen to just 344 a mere two months later in September the same year. The trend has continued downward since, hitting a low of 46 in April 2017.

This is a problem for the already overstretched NHS, which has long relied on international recruitment to fill staffing shortages. Since 2008, the majority of international nurses have come from within the EU, but this supply is drying up quickly.

It is estimated that England alone faces a shortage of 30,000 nurses, with the Health Foundation noting that this is a result of long-term policy failures that reach beyond Brexit.

Anita Charlesworth, director of research and economics at the Health Foundation, said: "The chronic shortage of nurses is the result of years of short-term planning and cuts to training places. A sustainable, long-term approach to workforce planning is desperately needed."

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