NHS hospitals will pay hundreds of thousands for visas to keep EU staff after Brexit amid crippling shortages
- UCL hospitals, St George’s Hospitals, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ will foot the bill
- Expected to cost UCL hospital trust alone more than £100,000
- More than one in ten NHS staff in the capital are from elsewhere in the EU
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NHS hospitals will pay for the visas of nearly 1,300 EU staff to keep them in London after Brexit, it has been revealed.
University College London hospitals, St George’s Hospital, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ are among the trusts preparing to foot the bill to keep their foreign workers.
This is expected to cost UCLH alone, which has nine treatment centres in central London, more than £100,000.
More than one in ten of the capital’s NHS staff are from other European countries, according to figures.
Guy’s Hospital (pictured) is among one of many London hospitals that has offered to pay for the visas of nearly 1,300 EU staff to keep them in the capital after Brexit on March 29 2019
Professor Marcel Levi, chief executive of UCLH, has reportedly written to nearly 1,300 staff offering to cover the cost of their ‘settled status’ applications.
This allows an immigrant to stay in the UK for as long as they like and could make them eligible for British citizenship.
Professor Levi, who is from the Netherlands, told staff: ‘Regardless of Brexit, we want you to stay with us.’
UCLH unusually had £76million left over at the end of the last financial year, however, most NHS trusts struggle to cover their costs.
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Jacqueline Totterdell, chief executive of St George’s, in Tooting, is also due to send similar letters to her 1,000 EU staff next week.
A spokesperson from the hospital said its European workers are valued members of the team and make an ‘enormous contribution’ to its care.
Siobhan Harrington, chief executive of Whittington Hospital, Archway, has also offered to pay for staffs’ visas, saying EU workers should be supported through this period of uncertainty.
‘Valuing our staff who do such a great job to care for patients is key to our future NHS,’ she told The Evening Standard.
Imperial College London, which runs five west London hospitals, and London North West Healthcare, which runs four, are considering similar action.
The chief exec of St George’s Hospital (pictured) is due to make a similar offer to her 1,000 EU staff next week. A spokesperson said foreign workers are valued members of the team
An ‘early bird’ settlement application for NHS workers comes into play on November 29 and costs £56. The general population will have to wait four months longer.
UCLH has said it will give staff £85 to cover the cost of each application, as well as the money they will lose after tax.
It is also arranging for specialist employment lawyers to offer staff advice sessions.
The UK is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29 next year. Those without settlement status may have to leave by December 2020.
This comes after Simon Stevens, NHS England’s chief executive, urged people to ‘hug an EU nurse’ to let them know they are welcome.
‘We need everybody across the NHS in London to put your arm around a friend from the rest of the European Union and make sure they get that message,’ he said.
Mr Stevens even claimed he sought out Spanish nurses at St Thomas’, Lambeth, where his wife is being treated, to thank them for their services.
London has around 8,000 nursing vacancies, with NHS England’s chief nursing officer Professor Jane Cummings previously saying she was concerned about how Brexit would affect staffing levels.
Recruiting foreign staff currently costs the NHS £150 million a year.
The Royal College of Physicians has warned this could more than triple if Brexit cuts off freedom of movement.
Earlier this year, the NHS was accused of ‘haemorrhaging’ nurses as 33,000 quit in 12 months.
One in 10 nurses in England are leaving their position every year, which is enough to staff more than 20 hospitals and means quitters outnumbered joiners by 3,000 in 2017.
Number of would-be nurses plunges: Numbers applying for degrees down a third in two years
Plans to increase numbers of trainee nurses amid an NHS staffing crisis have failed, nursing leaders claim.
The number of those applying to nursing degrees has fallen a third in two years, from 43,730 in 2016 to 29,360 today, a Royal College of Nursing report has revealed.
The college blames a Government decision to scrap grants worth £20,000 for future nurses and midwives and replace them with loans. The move was announced in 2015 and ministers claimed the money saved would pay for extra nurse training places. But the NHS is currently severely short of nurses, with approximately one in nine of all full-time posts being vacant.
Janet Davies, chief executive of the RCN, said the Government had ‘squandered’ the chance to address the crisis, adding: ‘The Government knows that when there aren’t enough nurses, patients can pay the very highest price.’ She called on ministers to ‘redouble efforts’ to attract students with fair pay and other incentives.
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