One in 10 staff working at NCIC Trust are from outside of UK

It follows recent praises from the staff body about the contribution made by "hugely talented workers from around the world" to England's healthcare system.

The figures, from NHS digital, show North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust employed 680 staff from outside the UK as of June 30 – or 10.1 per cent of all staff at the trust who declared their nationality.

Of them, 170 (2.5 per cent) were from the EU or European Economic Area, and a further 510 (7.6 per cent) were from the rest of the world.

The ratio of foreign to UK staff at the North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust was comparatively low compared to the rest of England, where 21.5 per cent of staff are non-UK nationals.

These figures were based on the total headcount of staff working at the trust, rather than the equivalent full-time employees.

Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, the membership organisation for NHS trusts, said the figures show “just how much our severely understaffed NHS relies on dedicated people from all over the world to deliver high-quality care to patients”.

As of June, there were 252 doctors and 232 nurses from outside of the UK working at the North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust.

Ms Cordery continued: “The stark reality is that the NHS just doesn’t have enough staff, putting patients’ safety at risk by affecting the care that overstretched staff can provide.

“With vacancies at an all-time high across health and care services – 132,000 in trusts in England alone – we desperately need a long-term, fully-funded workforce plan for the NHS from the Government to invest in growing the staff we recruit from within the UK, alongside valued recruits from abroad.”

Of the 125,741 full-time equivalent hospital and community health service doctors in England in June 2022 whose nationality was known, 42,531 (33.8 per cent) were non-UK nationals, up from 25.9 per cent in December 2016.

The proportion of nurses and health visitors who are non-UK nationals noted a similar increase.

Caroline Waterfield, of the workforce organisation NHS Employers, said: “The NHS benefits greatly from hugely talented workers from around the world.

“The recent focus on additional recruitment of international nurses has resulted in a significant change in the profile of the NHS nursing workforce – we have also seen an increase in the numbers of individuals undertaking the nurse degree apprenticeship and undergraduate nursing programmes."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “International recruitment is only one part of our plans to grow the NHS workforce, and the supply of homegrown staff is increasing.

“NHS England have also been commissioned to develop a long-term workforce plan to help recruit and retain more NHS staff.”

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