Brexit has had no adverse impact on staffing at hospitals, says report

Hospitals in Sutton and Mansfield have not been adversely affected by Brexit, according to a new report.
King's Mill Hospital in Sutton is retaining its EU national staff, says the report.King's Mill Hospital in Sutton is retaining its EU national staff, says the report.
King's Mill Hospital in Sutton is retaining its EU national staff, says the report.

The report, ‘Brexit And The NHS’, has been produced by the data unit of BBC TV and investigates the impact Britain’s vote to leave the EU has had on staffing at hospitals, particularly on employees who are EU nationals.

However, the findings for Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust, which runs King’s Mill Hospital in Sutton and Mansfield Community Hospital, reveals very little change over the last three years.

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Rob Simcox, deputy director of human resources operations at the Trust, said: “The figures show we haven’t felt any real impact in terms of EU nurses after the Brexit vote.

“In fact, we are continuing to bring in nurses from EU countries. A recent example was 11 registered nurses joining us from Croatia after a concerted recruitment effort on the ground there.

“The situation with Brexit is something that we will be continuing to follow closely and plan for as a potential challenge in the future. We will continue to look at practical and creative ways of meeting those challenges.”

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has reassured the country’s 58,000 NHS employees from the EU that they will continue to be welcome in the UK. However, employers have said the vote to leave had created “significant uncertainty”, while the NHS Confederation has warned that if a considerable proportion left, the quality of services would suffer. What’s more, there had been anecdotal evidence that doctors and nurses had already gone or were preparing to do so.

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The BBC report studied every NHS Trust in the country and found that EU nationals made up a larger share of staff leaving the NHS after the referendum than before.

But within the Sherwood Forest Trust, the proportion of EU staff leaving was not bigger year on year since 2014/15, and the proportion of EU staff joining was not smaller year on year.

Mr Simcox went on: “Nursing recruitment is a challenge, but we are pleased to say that we are in a relatively strong position at the moment.

“We’ve been really successful in both recruiting and retaining nursing staff. We have run targeted and flexible recruitment campaigns, and we do everything we can to make sure nurses want to stay with us once they are here by making them feel valued and respected. We also offer regular training and development opportunities.”