Leaving aside the question just for a moment (and I will return to it I promise) there is an interesting conundrum at play here. According to the NHS, of the 33,000 nurses recorded as joining hospitals in 2015/16, just over 6,000 held an EU nationality other than British. Some 1,750 were Spanish, 1,300 Italian and nearly 1,000 Portuguese.
So how is it that these other EU nations can be denuded of their nursing staff in fairly large numbers, whereas the UK cannot cope without importing loads? It is clear the UK trains far fewer nurses than it needs (preferring instead to rely on imported labour). But do Italy, Spain and Portugal train far more nurses than they require? If so, why on earth do they do that? Is it part of EU policy which sees some nations training skilled staff to be sent to other nations (rather like Cuba has been forced to do in recent years)?
But back to the question. There are two aspects which cause the number of nurses from the EU working in the UK to change – the numbers arriving and the numbers leaving. The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) suggests that the biggest factor in the reduction of those arriving since last summer is the introduction, last spring, of language tests (which has nothing to do with Brexit). “This is the first time in years that we have seen a drop-off [in EU nurses on the register],” said NMC chief executive and registrar Jackie Smith. She said it was unclear whether the drop in EU nurses on the register was a result of fewer people applying because they were deterred by the new [language] rules, or because a “significant number” of those tested did not pass first time.
Meanwhile, the number of EU nurses leaving the register every month has increased slightly over the same time, from 257 leaving in July, to 318 in December.
In any case, according to the NMC, the combined effect [of fewer arriving and slightly more leaving] has meant the total number of EU nurses registered with the NMC shrank towards the end of the year – from 38,992 in September to 38,661 by December. A reduction of 0.85% is not quite the sensational “mass haemorrhaging” (nice term when used in connection with medical matters) of foreign staff from the UK that the Grauniad had in mind when explaining to its gullible readers what the Brexit vote was responsible for. And I didn’t see any mention in their report (or that of The so-called Independent) of the (highly desirable) language tests which seem to be causing most of the decrease.