According to a recent survey it was found that international nurses would need to have work permits in order to take up jobs in the NHS.
The step was mainly taken to give jobs to the homegrown nursing graduates. Statistics show that about 11,500 foreign nurses come to Britain from outside the European Union every year.India supplied the most number of nurses followed by the Philippines and Australia. The rule applies to nurses in bands 5 and 6. But the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary Dr Beverly Malone said that international nurses are now being made scapegoats for the current deficits crisis. He said that about 150,000 nurses are due to retire in the next five to ten years and replacing them with homegrown nurses alone is a nearly impossible task.
But Lord Warner, the Health Minister, said that extra investment in training of nurses would eliminate the necessity to hire junior nurses from abroad. This scenario would not affect nurses who are already working in Britain and there would still be specialist nursing vacancies. Statistics show that only a quarter of students who have already graduated from one of the London universities have found work.
