EU uncertainty demoralising NHS staff

The chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) has warned that NHS staff are struggling with ‘serious instability’ as a result of uncertainty over the UK’s exit from the EU.

Mark Porter claimed that European doctors and medical students working in the UK are ‘frightened and anxious’ over their future status in the NHS workforce and suggested that the concerns could threaten the whole NHS workforce morale.

Speaking at a conference on priorities for the health and social care workforce organised by the Westminster Health Forum, Porter cited the fact that 30 per cent of the NHS workforce come from oversea, with half of that number EU citizens, and said that addressing risks posed by Brexit to EU staff was essential to safeguarding the NHS workforce.

Parliament has voted in favour of the government’s European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, which will initiate the negotiation process. However, an amendment to the bill aimed at giving permanent residency to all EU citizens in the UK was overturned in the Commons.

He said: “Some [of the medical workforce] don’t have the permanent right to remain at the moment and we [the BMA] believe that in order to give security to our workforce, they should be given that right to remain, perhaps as a one-off measure and regardless of the current five-year thresholds.

“We also think it’s very important to address the serious instability expressed by people who have arrived here to qualify as medical students. They are now in the middle of their courses and wondering about whether they’re even going to be allowed to complete those courses by working in the NHS.”