Your report on the 93% fall in overseas nurses (Drop in overseas workers is ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts, 26 February) lays bare how dependent the UK has become on international recruitment. When visa policy shifts can trigger warnings of an “impending car crash”, it shows a workforce model built on fragility, not resilience.
For years, the UK – like other high-income countries – has relied on internationally educated nurses to fill domestic shortages. That may have eased immediate pressures, but it masked chronic underinvestment in training, pay and retention at home. Tightening migration without first building self-sufficiency simply exposes that failure.
But there is also a global dimension. Many of the countries the UK recruits from have far fewer nurses per capita and can ill afford to lose experienced staff. As nurses tell us repeatedly, sustainable workforce policy must work for both sides.
The UK now has an opportunity to lead and commit to genuine domestic self-sufficiency while working with other major recruiting nations to establish a co-investment mechanism – potentially a global fund for nurse education – so that countries benefiting from international recruitment also reinvest in those they recruit from.
Migration should not be a tap turned on and off. It must be ethical, planned and mutually beneficial.
Howard Catton
CEO, International Council of Nurses
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