Immigration plans may cost NHS 50,000 nurses – survey

Up to 50,000 nurses could leave the UK over the government's immigration proposals, plunging the NHS into its biggest ever workforce crisis, research suggests.

- Andrew Gregory Health editor

Keir Starmer has promised to curb net migration, with plans to force migrants to wait as long as 10 years to apply to settle in the UK, instead of automatically gaining settled status after five years.

The measures, which also include plans to raise foreign workers’ skills requirements to degree level and raise the standards of English language required for all types of visa, including dependents, are seen as an attempt to combat the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. A public consultation on the plans is imminent.

Nursing leaders said the plans were “immoral” and treated highly skilled migrants as “political footballs”. A mass exodus of nurses would also threaten patient safety and derail government efforts to slash waiting times, they said.

Under the proposals, migrant workers in every sector of the economy would be hit. However, the most serious impact would be in the health service, which is already buckling under the strain of soaring demand for care amid existing staff shortages.