back to article Scrapping Brit cap on nurses, doctors means more room for IT folk

Campaigners have welcomed reports that the UK government plans to remove doctors and nurses from an immigration cap – which could also make it easier for businesses to recruit IT workers from outside the EU. Home secretary Sajid Javid is expected to reveal the policy shift tomorrow, various outlets have reported, as the …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge

    So in order to regain control of our borders, we've voted to leave the EU. And because of that, EU nationals who were working here have decided to go back to the EU and not come back. To fill the gaps made by this exodus, we're now going to open our borders to those outside of the EU (where, lets be honest, most of the xenophobes who voted Leave have the problem with in the first place) and invite more foreign people to come to this country?

    I was wrong about the Vote Leave brigade, they do have a sense of humour.

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      "we've voted to leave the EU. And because of that, EU nationals who were working here have decided to go back to the EU"

      Why did they do that? In order to make sure they didnt qualify for any "those already here might as well be allowed to stay" type ruling that may come up?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Why did they leave?

        Because they felt that the British people told them to go back home.

        Because, 2 years after the vote, they still don't have any assurance about the rights they will have once Brexit is in effect.

        Because the fall in the pound value has increased their cost of living and made a UK salary much less attractive when converted to euro.

        1. Korev Silver badge
          Unhappy

          Why did they leave?

          Because they felt that the British people told them to go back home.

          Because, 2 years after the vote, they still don't have any assurance about the rights they will have once Brexit is in effect.

          Anecdotally, the last two people we've had start work here were EU citizens working in Cambridge before and said the above. They didn't mention salaries, but they're probably happy they're earning more than the poor pay for technical people in the UK.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @Korev

            funnily enough, I also had in mind a couple from Cambridge who left essentially because of point 1. The husband managed to get transferred to his company's branch in southern France, also in IT. Being an internal transfer, the salary was probably adjusted so that he didn't make a loss in cost of living terms.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        In order to make sure they didnt qualify for any "those already here might as well be allowed to stay" type ruling that may come up?

        Not "may" but "has". It was one of the first things agreed in the Brexit negotiations last year, although many people still choose to ignore that.

      3. Len
        Unhappy

        Judging from the people around me that have left the UK in the last two years, they are simply not interested in qualifying to stay. What's the point in qualifying to stay if you don't want to stay?

        They have just decided to move on to better places to live and/or work. If, like them, you were making a good salary in London you are likely to earn an even better salary in Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Barcelona, Stockholm etc. while the cost of living will be similar or lower.

        Particularly among my friends who work in advertising there has been a serious exodus. Almost all my advertising friends have left London, headhunted by agencies in Amsterdam and Berlin.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          "among my friends who work in advertising there has been a serious exodus"

          So it's not all bad.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          If, like them, you were making a good salary in London you are likely to earn an even better salary in Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Barcelona, Stockholm etc.

          I doubt that's true for Barcelona.

      4. Stork Silver badge

        @ Prst. V.Jeltz:

        I would think because they did not feel welcome. Some were asked by neighbours when they were leaving, perhaps? It took ages for any declaration to be made, and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, right? And at times it seems HM's gov has a problem to agree internally what they hope to agree with the rest of the EU.

        Furthermore, after Windrush I would be reluctant to trust the UK to keep to the spirit as well as the letter of any agreement.

        I lived in England almost 5 years in the 90es, and I could easily imagine the problems of proving I had been there continuously. How long do you keep you utility bills? For someone from the rest of the World, it can be hard to internalise how important something like that could be.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      EU nationals who were working here have decided to go back to the EU

      Only around 1000 EU nursing staff have left, this is a systemic issue not a Brexit-related one.

    3. LucreLout

      where, lets be honest, most of the xenophobes who voted Leave have the problem with in the first place

      *yawn*

      You lost the debate and then you lost the vote. Get over it.

      Many Leavers voted leave for reasons wholly disconnected with immigration. Me, for instance. It was all about the economics and ability to do our own trade deals for me, and nothing to do with immigrants, of whom my wife is one. The facts don't fit your narrative very well, do they?

      If you can't conduct yourself in a grown up manner without insulting everyone who disagreed with you, even when that is most of the country, then can you please keep your hackneyed hard of thinking opinions to yourself?

      Voting to leave the EU does not make anyone a racist. It does not make anyone a xenophobe. And it most assuredly does not mean they didn't understand what they were voting for. Capiche?

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        It was all about the economics and ability to do our own trade deals for me, and nothing to do with immigrants

        The CBI thinks you've been had.

        Paul Dreschler also said there was "zero evidence" that trade deals outside the EU would provide any economic benefit to Britain.

        The government said it was "focused on delivering a Brexit that works for the whole of the UK".

        But Mr Dreschler blamed a "tidal wave of ideology" for the government's Brexit approach.

        "If we do not have a customs union, there are sectors of manufacturing society in the UK which risk becoming extinct," Mr Dreschler said.

        "Be in no doubt, that is the reality."

        1. LucreLout

          The CBI thinks

          The extremely pro-EU hard remain CBI? One can only marvel at why they might not have a positive view of Brexit. They're frightened that some Brexiteers might have voted due to concerns over immigration, and their cheap staff tap could get turned off, nothing more.

          As it happens, I really can't see Brexit reducing immigration - we're still going to need as many skilled workers as we do now and we still don't have a plan to force Brits to upskill.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "As it happens, I really can't see Brexit reducing immigration"

            OK so Brexit wasn't about reducing immigration.

            It wasn't about getting 350M per week for NHS because we all know that was BS.

            And as for making our ow trade deals, we can see how well this is going: we may be able to sign 1 new deal every 5 years, with countries that represent a fraction of our trade with EU and don't actually need a trade agreement with us, and in a bargaining position that's much weaker than if we were part of the EU block.

            So what's left to gain?

            1. LucreLout

              And as for making our ow trade deals, we can see how well this is going: we may be able to sign 1 new deal every 5 years, with countries that represent a fraction of our trade with EU

              Clearly you don't understand trade agreements. We don;t have one with the USA and yet I can buy coke, levis, and harleys. Trade with the rEU doesn't stop because we don't agree a trade deal.

              I expect we'll sign something like 20 to 30 trade deals the minute we stop negotiating with the rEU, because we'll novate the existing agreements with all their trade partners to stand alone agreements and tinker with each in turn. Meanwhile, we'll have a deal with the USA and probably China a lot faster than the rEU get there.

              1. Adrian Midgley 1

                We have several

                "The UK has its own bilateral trade relations with the US. It also works through the European Union (EU). In 2007, the EU and US set up the TransAtlantic Economic Council (TEC), with forums for business, consumers and legislators to promote open trade."

                You might be thinking of an FTA or a single market or a customs union perhaps?

                20-30 agreements the minute...

                Balls, alas.

        2. NerryTutkins

          "If we do not have a customs union, there are sectors of manufacturing society in the UK which risk becoming extinct," Mr Dreschler said.

          Great stuff, we'll have all these fantastic trade deals with non-EU countries. We won't have anything to sell them. But we'll have fantastic deals, and I think we all agree that's more important.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Wait, there WAS a debate??

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "You lost the " ..

        Leave/Remain - that's past now - We've all lost. The discussions on trade haven't been that great have they?

      4. Aitor 1

        Errr

        Voting for leave means you are more interested in your personal goals that many other peoples goals.

        While I would agree that voting for brexit does not mean you are a racist or a xenophone, racists and xenophobes mostly voted for brexit, and some of the most compelling reasons to vote for brexit were xenophobic (both truly good reasons and false ones).

        While I disagree with you, well, yes, now we will have more leeway to make our own agreements. the problem is, we are not in a good place to negotiate, so chances are they wont be fair to us. We shall see.

        1. LucreLout

          Re: Errr

          Voting for leave means you are more interested in your personal goals that many other peoples goals.

          No it doesn't. Quite the opposite in fact. No change is primarily to my own benefit - I earn as much as I'm willing to under the current tax system and have resorted to reducing my hours to keep my tax payments at least in the neighbourhood of reality. I'll be fine if we remain - I don't need us to sign new trade deals with the rest of the world. I could even vote labour, because when they (again) go broke and get turfed out, I'll still be fine.

          I voted leave to benefit the next generation, to provide them with access to the global market rather than the increasingly economically irrelevant rEU.

          some of the most compelling reasons to vote for brexit were xenophobic

          Such as? Frankly I found the debate around immigration to be the usual fact free nonsense. Where will the skills and experience come from if we don't import it?

          I genuinely couldn't find a good argument offered by eithe rcamp in relation to immigration and there are good arguments that could and should have been made. My vote came down to trade to benefit the next generations - I rather like working with my non-British colleagues, and hope & expect they'll stick around next year post Brexit.

          we are not in a good place to negotiate

          I disagree - we're in a better place than most of the world.

          1. Adrian Midgley 1

            Re: Errr

            Your argument about tax is bizarre but suggests your win condition is that someone else loses, possibly all of us.

            Your idea about the next generation is plain wrong.

            1. LucreLout

              Re: Errr

              Your argument about tax is bizarre but suggests your win condition is that someone else loses, possibly all of us.

              Only if you don't understand tax.

              My win condition is that I don't pay an ever greater percentage just because of some arbitrary and utterly meaningless threshold has been crossed. If we had a flat tax I'd go earn more, but we don't, so I prioritise other uses for my time.

              Your win condition, in expecting me to overlook an effective tax rate of 65% due to tax free earnings allowance withdrawl, is that I lose. Now, that might seem like a good idea to you, but it wouldn't if you were going to pay it.

              Your idea about the next generation is plain wrong.

              Actually its bang ont he money. The USA has grown a real terms 24% more than the EU over the past decade, China by manifestly more than that. Europe is increasingly economically irrelevant, and certainly isn't going to grow while the rEU are hamstrung by German fears of inflation from 70 odd years ago. The rest of the world is.

      5. strum

        > Get over it.

        >If you can't conduct yourself in a grown up manner

        *yawn*

      6. Stork Silver badge

        You are right, you don't have to be xenophobe to have voted to leave EU. There are respectable reasons (which one can agree or disagree with).

        As I see it as an outsider, the Leave camp was a messy mix of xenophobes, libertarians, Little Englanders, principled people who think UK would be better off in EAA - and then Boris who saw it as a way to become PM. A lot of them only really agreed about leaving, what they wanted with it you had at least 4 opinions about - and very vague plans.

        I personally think it is a pity, firstly because the UK tended to much things in a direction I liked, but also because I think it is going to make both UK and EU poorer in the medium tern - less income for my tourism business.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MORE room for IT Folk?

    I'm an IT Folk, and I don't see how I'm going to have more room if we allow in even more bloody foreigners! ;-)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So let me get this straight. Brexit will destroy jobs. But because Brexit, we need loads more workers. Something seems fishy.

    1. James 51
      Boffin

      Normally I don't feed the troll but just in case:

      - The UK does not train enough professionals to meet the needs of our country.

      - This shortfall has been made good by recuriting staff from other countries, mostly from the EU but further

      afield as well.

      - There was no cap on the number of EU people we could hire but there was on the rest of the world.

      - With very few people from the EU wanting to work in the UK, we need to bridge that shortfall by hiring more people from the rest of the world. Those people need visas, of which a limited number and we need more than we did before. Otherwise the NHS is going to struggle even more to meet the demands being placed upon it

      Simple enough for you? BTW Brexit isn't going to reduce demand on the NHS so it won't be destorying the need although the collapse in the pound and inability to get staff is reducing the ability to provide.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        No it isn’t - the whole point of this story is that the NHS isn’t capped.

        There is no shortage of STEM grads, there are 100 PhDs chasing every post-doc position let alone professorship.

        1. James 51
          FAIL

          It was capped and now will not be capped. That is the point of this story. As a side benefit, thousands of visas (assuming the number issued does not change) which would have been taken by NHS staff are now available for other skilled professionals such as those working in IT.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          Any jobs for a PhD in red herrings?

          No it isn’t - the whole point of this story is that the NHS isn’t capped.

          There is no shortage of STEM grads, there are 100 PhDs chasing every post-doc position let alone professorship.

          <sarcasm>

          That will be because every STEM graduate is a PhD and every PhD is a STEM graduate. And the only jobs that STEM graduates want are in academia. Plus, STEM graduates are completely interchangeable - someone with a biochemistry degree is highly skilled in areas like mathematics, chemical engineering and psychology.

          </sarcasm>

      2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        "- With very few people from the EU wanting to work in the UK, we need to bridge that shortfall by hiring more people from the rest of the world. Those people need visas, of which a limited number and we need more than we did before"

        This stupidity is the crux of the matter , and a few other brexit related matters as well.

        GOV: why have you no doctors?

        NHS: because they havent got visas

        GOV: who do they get visa off?

        NHS: you

        GOV: oh , ok , how much power overhead and resource requirements and lead time do we need for more visas?

        NHS: zero

        (substitute NHS for some other capped industry)

        1. James 51
          Paris Hilton

          You're going to have to unpack your argument. It's a little to dense for me.

        2. J.G.Harston Silver badge

          GOV: why have you no doctors?

          NHS: because there aren't enough being trained

          GOV: who trains them?

          NHS: errr.... we do

          GOV: so why aren't you training enough doctors?

          NHS: errrrrr.....

          1. James 51

            I did a quick search on nursing studies and the NHS wasn't a single option I saw, it was all various universities. The goverment controls funding for those courses and students and they have reduce support over the years so there are fewer students taking up those courses. That simplistic dialogue should end with:

            NHS: Cause you have preferred to hire in from abroad rather than support developing local talent.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        mostly from the EU

        When did India and the Philippines join the EU?

        1. EnviableOne

          if its anything like my org,

          we tried to hire local, but they were more intrested in rate they could get as agency,

          we tried to hire from spain, italy and holland, but they didnt want to come cos brexit,

          now we have had to go to the Philippines, and they cant get visas

          this might atleast mean we can get some of the empty nursing posts (some for more than 4 years) filled.

          I think our visa system post-Brexit needs to morph into something akin to the Aussie one, where if we need your skils, no probs, if we dont, you have to tick all the boxes under the sun, and we might let just you in and not the rest of the family..

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Facepalm

      Fishy logic

      So let me get this straight. Brexit will destroy jobs. But because Brexit, we need loads more workers. Something seems fishy.

      Different types of workers obviously aren't equivalent or interchangeable. If you are an experienced automobile component production line worker, then you are surely screwed. If you are a company insolvency practitioner or an experienced Jobcentre worker then you might want to start thinking about asking for a rise.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Fishy logic

        "Different types of workers obviously aren't equivalent or interchangeable."

        Manglement everywhere doesn't believe you.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More job displacement, yay

    More opportunities to undercut and replace British workers. As a 2-time victim of the 'skills shortage' plugging scheme, I look forward to being on the scrap heap...another appeasement to big corporates at the expense of the British workforce.

    No doubt I'll be labelled xenophobe for having the nerve to mention this concern.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: More job displacement, yay

      Be careful there. The party line is that big business wanted to leave the EU against the interests of the workers, not the other way around.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: More job displacement, yay

      It would be interesting to know who funds this CaSE organisation, time for a bit of investigative journalism El Reg? I wonder if it’s Tata, Wipro, Capita, Infosys and the other usual suspects?

    3. Pete4000uk

      Re: More job displacement, yay

      I voted for Brexit. But I do acknowledge the need to bring people in as needed. However, it should not be used as an excuse to not ensure we train the right people to fill these jobs ourselves. Why can't we recruit and retain the necessary medical staff?

      I sould also say I would always prefer 5 highly skilled immigrants over a coach load of so say 'unskilled people.

      1. James 51

        Re: More job displacement, yay

        It has been the policy of successive governments to run down the training of such staff in the UK (no more grants and bursaries for instance). It has simply been cheaper to bring trained staff in from other countries.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: More job displacement, yay

          It has been the policy of successive governments to run down the training of such staff in the UK (no more grants and bursaries for instance).

          And making things exponentially worse, the fuckwits now expect nurses to pay for the education demanded by a near-monopsony employer, leading to a dramatic reduction in nurse education when we weren't training enough to replace those retiring anyway. AND the NHS now expect most if not all nurses to be graduates, so that there's few ways of entering the profession without a £30k slug of debt round your neck. So with a circa 30,000 nursing and midwifery vacancies, idiot government policies have caused a 30% reduction in the number of people starting relevant courses.

          And the retirement rate is going to increase because of cliff edge effects in the NHS pension entitlement caused by the Agenda for Change (incidentally a gift of the last Labour government, back in 2004, along with the billions of NHS debt from Gordon Brown's PFI binge).

          It's tempting to blame the current bunch of charlatans, but its pretty clear than none of the Wasters of Westminster are fit stewards of anything more taxing than a free bar. And they wouldn't be much good at that, to judge by the squandering of £14bn in foreign aid in return for nothing.

          1. Wandering Reader

            Re: More job displacement, yay

            "And making things exponentially worse, the fuckwits now expect nurses to pay for the education demanded by a near-monopsony employer, leading to a dramatic reduction in nurse education when we weren't training enough to replace those retiring anyway."

            Nursing is the one degree course where a graduate is almost guaranteed a graduate salaried job anywhere in the UK.

            Therefore, there is no shortage of applicants for nurse training places, just a shortage of places. So the solution is to spend money on training places, not on bursaries and grants.

            1. Alan Brown Silver badge

              Re: More job displacement, yay

              "Nursing is the one degree course where a graduate is almost guaranteed a graduate salaried job anywhere in the UK."

              Guaranteeing a job isn't the same as guaranteeing it's paid well enough to pay off that crippling student loan debt. What graduates are being offered is desultry and it's no wonder they're bailing for better pay overseas.

        2. Duffy Moon

          Re: More job displacement, yay

          I paid to study for a Biochemistry degree (plus a one-year foundation), spent just under a year working as a Health Care Assistant in a hospital, paid high entry fees for various exams - all so that I could go on to study medicine. My exam results were good enough to qualify me for no less than four interviews at medical schools. I was not offered one place.

          Now, I couldn't afford the fees even if I was offered a place (which seems unlikely at the age of 48), as there are no loans for graduate-entry medical degrees.

          I wonder why there's as shortage...

        3. Wandering Reader

          Re: More job displacement, yay

          !It has been the policy of successive governments to run down the training of such staff in the UK (no more grants and bursaries for instance). It has simply been cheaper to bring trained staff in from other countries."

          Nursing degree courses are 7 times oversubscribed. If there is money available it should be used to create more training places, not more applications.

        4. Warm Braw

          Re: More job displacement, yay

          It has been the policy of successive governments to run down the training of such staff

          It's also been the policy of successive governments to encourage a "flexible" labour force.

          That might be fine in principle, but if the predominant view of labour is that it is essentially disposable, it doesn't exactly encourage either employers or employees to bother with training.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: More job displacement, yay

        "Why can't we recruit and retain the necessary medical staff?"

        Because we don't train enough and were capped from bringing in enough from outside to cover the difference.

      3. Pen-y-gors

        Re: More job displacement, yay

        @Pete

        However, it should not be used as an excuse to not ensure we train the right people to fill these jobs ourselves. Why can't we recruit and retain the necessary medical staff?

        Because it takes time and money.

        Doctors and nurses don't grow on trees. They have to be carefully nurtured from tiny seeds for years until they are fully grown, and even then they will require care and support as they develop to full maturity.

        Or to put it another way: experienced doctors take about 15 years to develop from when they leave school. Specialist nurses less, but still not exactly months. And if we want to train them we need training schools, which cost money to build and run. And those schools need staff - which we're short of and would probably have to import to get sufficient numbers.

        Problem is finding a government willing to invest for the future. God knows where we'll get one - they don't grow on trees either.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: More job displacement, yay

        "Why can't we recruit and retain the necessary medical staff?"

        Historical under-investment in training staff, coupled with insufficient on-ward capacity to increase the number of medical staff being trained (they all need practical experience as part of their studies, and there aren't enough staff in the teaching hospitals to allow a massive ramping up of this), long hours*, poor pay*, and general attitude of contempt from previous governments/home secretatries, or they can go to somewhere else where they're treated a bit better?

        * for most "junior" doctors (i.e. those who aren't consultants)

      5. Aitor 1

        Re: More job displacement, yay

        Constant money salaries have dropped and the pressure on nurses and doctors has increased.

        Therefore it is not a "skill shortage". Pay more and improve working conditions, and you will have no trouble hiring.

        Same for IT.. there are plenty of people who decided to quit because conditions were harsh (not me!).

        As for being a shortage.. well, I am quite skilled and got a new contract as my old one finished.. but the tests I had to pass were tough. What this tells me is that there is NO SHORTAGE. Otherwise they would not aim to hire the best, but whoever is available as was the case in 1999.

        So stop importing ppl in IT, no shortage at all, they just want to lower our salaries.

        Note: I am a bloody foreigner, and yes, me being here is good for the economy but also lowers the salary for other highly qualified IT ppl.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why don't they start targeting kids leaving school to get them into the medical profession? Sorry, silly me it costs too much and ain't no one gonna be poor for 8 years in early life to work probably 6 years to pay back for the privilege. Arse about tit all this. You want doctors then sort out the education system. Immigration is a sticking plaster because do we really think these people will stay once the standard of living improves back home?

    1. Len
      Meh

      My partner is a doctor and once you become a senior doctor it pays quite well. It does cost a lot on other levels such as time (very few doctors have 9-5 roles) and emotional/stress toll.

      And that is for a senior doctor. Her horror stories of being a junior doctor (most people don't become a senior doctor until their mid to late thirties) make you wonder why anyone would consider it. 20 hour shifts, trying to catch 15 min. of sleep on a chair in a corner, lack of concentration due to no time to eat, falling asleep on a patients back while listening to their heart etc. And that was before the Jeremy Hunt pay cuts for junior doctors.

      I fully understand why people are not that keen to become doctors.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "It does cost a lot on other levels such as time"

        Talking to my GP, their standard working hours are 7:30 - 22:00, 5 days per week. Admittedly, they're a practice partner, so (I assume) they're well-paid, but those are some long hours (apparently the others in the surgery work similar hours) ...

        1. Len

          My partner is a consultant in a major London hospital. She is fortunate to have a specialism that doesn't tend to have acute cases (I wonder how many people consider work life balance when they choose their specialism) so her hospital hours are typically 8:30 - 18:30. Every couple of weeks she has go in on the weekends to see any new patients as newly admitted patients need to be seen by a consultant within a certain amount of hours. Nights/weekends are otherwise done by junior doctors.

          The main added pressure is the stuff that comes on top of hospital hours. Preparing teaching classes, writing up case studies for medical journals, peer-reviewing other people's articles, preparing presentations for clinical or managerial meetings, planning speaking or demonstrating engagements for conferences etc. All that stuff happens in her 'free' time, evenings and weekends at home.

          She has an extreme patient focus, that's what keeps her going, but I don't think she'll be able to do this until retirement.

    2. colinb

      The VISA's cover a lot more than doctors but there is no shortage of people wanting to get into the medical profession, there is a ratio of at least 10:1 on admissions to medical schools.

      Plus you need a lot of money and top grades to even have a chance given the capacity limit.

      The medical profession is closed shop and train exactly the number they want to train, in fact a request to train more is called over-training as this article from a couple of years ago shows (http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/Why_don%E2%80%99t_we_train_more_doctors_than_we_need%3F)

      Given there were shortages then, that is bonkers.

      It costs the NHS £700,000 to train a consultant from day 1 in medical school. However no one lays out the cost of getting contractors and agency staff in which no doubt over a few years would add up to a lot more.

      You could increase capacity and tie grants to working in certain areas for certain periods of time. This is not new (see Northern Exposure TV show).

      Short termism has infected the NHS from the private sector and i suspect the larger % of women has not been factored in for availability as they need more part time flexibility.

      The system is also under strain due to the government cutting back community care.

      There is no excuse for this, the aging population demographic has been highlighted since the frickin 90s.

      No planning is the same as Sh*t planning

  6. Nick Kew

    The real point

    Surely what really matters here is, we have a straw in the wind.

    The new Home Secretary, unlike his #hashtag-predecessor, isn't afraid to come out from under the boss's thumb and revise one of her key policies.

    So, what's next? Or will he be stamped on so hard from above as to cow him into submission?

  7. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    No thought given to maybe perhaps recruiting BRITISH staff?

  8. JimC

    Why does britain

    Deserve to plunder the rest of the world of their health workers?

    1. Nick Kew

      Re: Why does britain

      That's easy. By paying them a lot more than almost anywhere else - with the possible exception of "Harley Street" practices around the world.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why does britain

      >Deserve to plunder the rest of the world of their health workers?

      Actually we train a lot in the NHS then they bugger off abroad to places like Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc.

      https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/nhs-medics-are-being-lured-away-to-australia-by-more-money-status-and-sunshine-survey-suggests-9629832.html

      Additionally the Government in their wisdom have now stopped free training for nurses and decided to import cheap from abroad.

      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nursing-applications-ucas-course-drop-nhs-grants-funding-debt-tuition-fees-costs-a8191546.html

      Madness eh ?

      1. JimC

        Re:Actually we train a lot in the NHS then they bugger off

        That big boy took my sweeties so I'm allowed to steal them off all the little kids??

  9. nsld

    Nige is spitting feathers

    Any decision which gets the kippers frothing and makes the gammon go so purple they look like a strangled bell end has my support.

    Farageski is already spitting feathers on twitter complaining that we will be letting in more foreigners.

    This is really boiling Nigel's piss, its great!

    1. David 132 Silver badge

      Re: Nige is spitting feathers

      Thank you for that reasoned, mature and well-argued contribution.

      On behalf of all of us who voted to leave: kindly fuck off and take your ad-hominem petulance with you while the grown-ups get on with trying to extricate the country from the bureaucratic, corrupt, arrogant and anti-democratic mess that is the EU.

      1. nsld

        Re: Nige is spitting feathers

        Did that touch a nerve David?

        Feel that vien in your neck throbbing?

        Check the mirror, notice a purpleish facial hue?

        You even managed to wheel out the old anti democratic Leave EU/Cambridge Analytica messaging, they really got you on every level.

        You've gone full gammon.

        You might be grown up, but you aren't by any stretch a grown up and if we left this shit show to people on your level we will be back in mud huts flinging poo whilst Rees Mogg and Redwood hoover up all the assetts you helped destroy with your faux cries to bring back the empire.

      2. strum

        Re: Nige is spitting feathers

        >the grown-ups

        HA!

  10. Jim 59

    From which Tanzanian villages will we be removing doctors ? About 80,000 people die from Malaria annually in that country, many of them children, with about 11 million contracting the disease.

    And from which Zimbabwean hospitals will the NHS be taking doctors ? Apart from other health challenges, the rate of HIV infection in Zimbabwe is about 100 times that in the UK.

    What we are proposing will relieve some suffering in the UK, only by vastly increasing it in much poorer countries. Immoral?

  11. hammarbtyp

    Governments and quotas just don't mix

    Can anyone think of an example when government defined quotas system has ever worked?

    Governments are just not reactive enough to the changes in technology and industrial requirements. By the time they get round to changing the quota to meet the need, the need has passed, or the industry has suffered to the point it is no longer viable in the country.

    We are constantly told we are in a knowledge based economy. In such a economy, knowledge and brains replace steel and coal as the new resource. By artificially restricting access to both, in the long term you are going to hinder growth.

    It is not enough to say, well we will just produce our own. Its a bit like saying that you will solve poverty by creating more gold. The top guys in the growing market are a sought after resource and can go anywhere. The UK used ti be top of the list, but now we are falling behind all our major competitors.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Expect more coverups of incompetence by docs with a degree from 'Bouthere U.

    I will just let out my inner Daily Mail reader, but there are problems.

    Incompetence in the colored ones will be hard to ferret out as it is now downright racist to imply less than stellar capabilities in Sun People.

    And maybe these people could be doctors in their own countries. I'm sure those countries need good docs too. Is it ethical to hoover up skills from abroad?

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