Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt after the number coming from the EU fell again and (it says here) coronavirus prevented thousands of arrivals from the rest of the world.

Here’s the Guardian:

The prime minister made the promise a cornerstone of his general election campaign last year and has since reiterated many times his determination to deliver the increase.

But annual data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council shows that the number of nurses and midwives from the European Economic Area (EEA) on its register, and thus able to work in the UK, has fallen for the last three years in a row.

The total now stands at 31,385. That is 1,650 (five per cent) fewer than the 33,035 such health professionals who were in Britain in 2018-19 and 6,639 fewer than the 38,024 who were here in 2016-17, the year in which the UK voted to leave the EU.

Last year just 913 people from the EEA joined the NMC’s permanent register for the first time. That is less than 10 per cent of the 9,389 EEA nurses and midwives who did so in 2015-16. Numbers arriving from Spain, Italy, Romania, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland have slowed to a trickle.

The NHS in England already has more than 40,000 vacancies for nurses.

Johnson simply doesn’t have a clue.

He made the pledge in the run-up to a general election – probably because he thought it would sound good and play well with voters.

He knew he’d be getting no nurses from the EU, and he had been told that Covid-19 was on the way – although, given his limited ability to understand global events, it is unlikely he gave any consideration to the meaning of this.

He spent weeks standing outside the door of 10 Downing Street, clapping for NHS staff in the certain knowledge that the virus was killing some of them and removing many others from active service.

And he knew that nobody would be recruited to boost those numbers.

Worse, his government announced plans to penalise NHS staff (as part of the Tory recovery strategy) and to harm the finances of student nurses who had stepped in to help when the NHS really needed them.

Not only did he lie about recruiting 50,000 more nurses; he has deliberately made the NHS unattractive for anyone considering that career.

Source: Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt | Society | The Guardian

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