Employing overseas staff post-Brexit could cost £500m

The Royal College of Physicians has warned that a lack of clarity over how the UK's immigration system will work after Brexit could leave the NHS spending up to £500 million per year on international recruitment.

The health body has calculated that the costs of recruiting EU and non-EU staff could more than triple from the current £150 million a year if freedom of movement ends as a result of Brexit.

Andrew Goddard, RCP registrar and president-elect, said that unless the government acts now the NHS faces a significant new cost pressure, as a result of the Conservatives pledging to triple the health surcharge and double the immigration skills charge by 2020.

Modelled on last year’s figure of 12,303 EU staff joining the NHS in 2017, and applying the tier 2 immigration system or a similar model, the RCP warns that the NHS would have to find £105 million each year to recruit staff that previously attracted no immigration costs.

Adding in costs for family members, renewed visa costs, simple bureaucracy costs, as well as international recruitment from non-EU joiners, with 85 per cent bringing family members, and the total costs within three years could be as much as £490 million a year.

Goddard says that it is £490 million that could be better spent on ‘developing our current staff, delivering high-quality patient care, delivering integration and driving forward vital quality improvement work’.