During the recent election campaign, the major parties all raised the issue of the shortfall in nursing within the UK today. They all talked long and hard about the ‘50,000 shortfall’ and followed that up with plans for solving the problem completely … if only it was that simple.

Well we now have a new Government and the hope is that they make real progress solving the problem in hand. However, if you really want to tackle the nursing shortage, then part of the solution is ‘international recruitment’ and if you want to encourage that to happen then can we suggest that increasing the Immigration Health Surcharge by an extra 50% isn’t really the best starting point.

The decision to do this in 2020 will undoubtedly make it harder, not easier to recruit much needed, qualified staff into the NHS and it will be counter-productive. It’s a positive move to say, ‘we’ll recruit 50,000 brand new nurses for the UK’, but domestic recruitment pushes haven’t always worked previously and there’s no conclusive evidence to suggest that they will in the future, so we need to take a different approach.

The UK’s leading healthcare thinktank, The King’s Fund, recently called on the Government to scrap the Immigration Health Surcharge for medical staff which has increased from £400 to £625 a year. This figure is on top of the visa fee that international nurses are also expected to pay. One of the ways to tackle this would be for MAC (Migration Advisory Committee) to start talking seriously to the Home Office and really ‘put the issue on the table’.

Of course the NHS has to be funded and the Government insists that the majority of this surcharge goes straight back into frontline NHS services. But as a reminder, all international nurses pay the same UK National Insurance and Income Tax that everyone else does which is there in part to cover their contribution to the NHS … essentially the Government is taxing this much needed workforce not just once but twice. And let’s also not forget, the recruitment of international nurses means that the roles aren’t filled by expensive agency staff who can’t always offer the all-important continuity of care.

But apart from the funding issue. Let’s look at the message that this sends out. When it comes to the NHS, the UK needs a migrant workforce. The demand is there as is the potential supply from outside the UK. The Government message seems to be ‘we’ll give you a job but we’ll charge you for it.’ Whereas a more positive message could be ‘the NHS need you here in the UK and we will welcome you with open arms’.

With the help of international nurses we will be able to solve one of the major headaches that the NHS currently has, so why make it harder? Why discourage these nurses? Our suggestion is that the Government should be looking to scrap the Immigration Health Surcharge for all essential workers on the shortage occupation list that join the NHS. That in turn would increase international recruitment rates and would help the Government solve the shortfall problem that played such a central part of their election manifesto.

Let’s be honest, the UK needs international nurses. In fact if we’re frank, we need international nurses more than international nurses need us. Other countries are seeing the same opportunity and it’s why the likes of America, Germany and a number of other European countries are starting to recruit internationally in the very same way … competition is getting tough for these staff, so let’s start by giving the UK a slight advantage by encouraging the Government to scrap what could be become known as an ‘unhealthy surcharge’.

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