NHS accused of unethical recruiting of medical staff

Brexit has left the NHS increasingly dependent on doctors and nurses from poor "red list" countries, which the World Health Organization has said it is wrong to recruit from, a health thinktank has warned.

- Denis Campbell Health policy editor

Thousands of staff from countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe have been employed by the health service in England since the UK left the EU at the end of 2020.

Out of a 1.5m-strong workforce, the NHS now employs 65,610 staff from the WHO's red list of 55 countries that are struggling with their own health workforce shortages.

It has taken on 32,935 of those since the start of 2021, including 20,665 who joined in the 20 months between March 2023 and November 2024 alone, according to NHS figures obtained by the Nuffield Trust that feature in a report published today.

One in 11 (9%) of all medics in England are now from red-list countries, as are two-thirds of nurses from overseas who have begun working in the NHS UK-wide since 2021. Since 2018, the UK has seen a 46% jump in nurses from Nigeria, a 21% rise in those from Ghana and 16% from Zimbabwe.

The huge surge in numbers has led to criticism that hiring so many is unethical and immoral, and will damage those countries' health systems.