The UK is sitting on a time bomb. And if it does not do some course correction at once there will be utter chaos and disaster and the people will suffer no end.
Here, we are talking about the scarcity of skilled doctors plaguing the UK National Health Service (NHS) and the government’s apathy to the problem. The situation has come to such a stage that if something is not done on a priority basis and the government does not remove the cap put on the admission of skilled doctors from abroad there will be some sort of medical emergency in the country very soon.
Check this report shared here under to find out what we are saying!
As per an analysis report by a well-known think tank, the different British hospitals will require around 3,500 new trained doctors every year, to duly assist manage the severe staffing shortages unless the in-office British Premier Theresa May removes them from her skilled worker’s visa limit.
As per the said analysis report, one out of every 11 health service posts are presently vacant in the country, and with the chances of the requirement further jumping very high, a large number of new doctors and nurses will have to be drafted in the coming decade.
The report has not only disclosed the degree to which the NHS depends on the manpower from overseas but also how Britain seems to be unable to draw the European workers it requires–a condition some worry (rightfully so) will only deteriorate further, in the wake of Brexit.
As per the information available, the British PM has come under mounting pressure from several quarters, from her health secretary also, to make the visa & immigration regulations for qualified workers easier, to enable the entry of additional doctors from abroad.
The likelihood of May allowing a minor swell in the figure of health experts from outside the European Union (EU) under the Tier 2 Visas Plan in the coming some weeks is there, this is another matter that it may be at the cost of other occupations.
As per the study on which the news is based, up to 45% of some key medical specialists – comprising neurosurgeons, cardiothoracic surgeons and paediatric cardiologists – are presently from outside Britain.
The study has urged for the yearly cap of 20,700, for the Tier 2 visa, which was introduced by May in 2011 when she was home secretary, to be done away with. Those behind the study are very keen that the profession of the healthcare manpower is removed from the threshold.
According to the Labour MP Liz Kendall–who reportedly drafted a section of the report–since the Brexit plebiscite, European health professionals seem growingly reluctant to move to the UK. Several of those are already keen to depart. Unbelievably, the health specialists from the non-European nations, who still do want to arrive, are being sent away, even at a time when the NHS is eager to have them on its payroll in view of the shortages.
He added that in case the administration starts new curbs on the EU immigration, post Brexit, and applies them to the NHS workers, then the condition will deteriorate further. The coming some months are crucial. Unless the administration takes urgent steps to prevent the exodus of the NHS workers back to Europe, and to guarantee that the health professionals with the abilities the NHS requires are admitted into the UK, the long serpentine waiting lists will become even longer even as patients will suffer no end, he cautioned.
Those behind the study also want the PM to discard her goal of cutting down net migration to less than 100,000, and to assure that nothing is done to impede the free movement of the health specialists from the EU, post the UK departs from the EU.
The report also added that the healthcare staff hired from abroad, to fill the various NHS posts, should not be subjected to a minimum income threshold, which has seen doctors having employment offers denied admission to the country.
Though close to 1 out of 8 (12.5%) of the NHS in England’s 1.2 million workers arrive from overseas, the NHS staff in clinical responsibilities are more expected to be foreign, with 26% of skilled doctors and 16% of the qualified nurses and health visitors from out-of-the-country.
The report, Our International Health Service, also states that while training additional UK personnel was a key component of the solution there was not any prospect of training sufficient to fulfill the requirement in the short to the medium term.
It also says that the analysis of the NHS and General Medical Council data submit that the health service could find it growingly tough to draw the clinical staff it requires from the EU in the wake of Brexit.
It also points out that the figure of the European nurses in the NHS has already dropped since the vote, even as the amount of doctors getting a licence to practise in the UK had nose-dived to become just 16% in 2017 from 25% of the total in 2014.
In the meantime, Health Education England has, reportedly, come up with an estimate that the NHS may require nearly 190,000 more clinical workers by 2027, the equal of 35,000 doctors, who constitute 18% of the total.
