NHS needs EU employees to avoid collapse, IPPR says

The Institute of Public Policy Research has warned that the NHS needs its 57,000 EU national workers in order to avoid an increasing workforce crisis.

The think tank suggested that EU nationals who have lived in Britain for over six years should receive automatic citizenship, to they don’t have to leave the country after Article 50 is triggered.

Official data has shown that 57,063 of the NHS’s 1.2 million staff are EU citizens, including 7,000 EU nationals working as consultants or specialist registrars and more than 21,000 as nurses and health visitors.

Chris Murray, who compiled the report, said: “It is critical to public health that these workers do not seek jobs elsewhere. All EU nationals who work for the NHS, or as locums in the NHS system, should be eligible to apply for British citizenship. This offer should be organised by the regional NHS and mental health trusts, who would be responsible for writing to all NHS staff who are EU nationals to inform them of their eligibility.”

“There are currently around 57,000 EU nationals working in the English NHS, accounting for five per cent of its workforce; one in 10 of the UK’s registered doctors is an EU national. Without them the NHS would collapse.”