Our NHS has a severe and growing shortage of staff. Recent proposals from the Government to restrict work visas and leave to remain threaten to make this crisis starkly worse. Now the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have asked the public to write to our MPs requesting that the Government consider abandoning such damaging proposals – please use the link below to contact your MP on this important issue – we all need our NHS nurses and other staff, many of whom come from abroad.
https://action.rcn.org.uk/page/185105/action/1?locale=en-GB
The government’s proposed changes to Indefinite Leave to Remain could make it harder for them to stay, work and thrive in the UK. These changes would also deepen the workforce crisis at a time when safe staffing levels are already under immense pressure. We cannot afford to lose the people who hold our services together.
Geraldine Taylor, one of our HAFSON team, has clearly summarised why the NHS and its patients need migrant staff and she argues clearly that migrants are not to blame for difficulties in the NHS:
Migrants Not to Blame for NHS Crisis
Migrants are often blamed for the state of the NHS. Keep Our NHS Public argues that this is racist scapegoating and migrants make an important contribution to society and the NHS in particular.
The NHS and social care rely on migrant workers.
Around one in five NHS and social care workers were born overseas. Without these workers staff shortages would be even worse. The NHS would collapse. Barriers to immigration and ending leave to remain risk patient safety and diminish the quality of care.
A negligible impact on public services.
Less than 2% of the UK’s total population are undocumented migrants. Currently they are only entitled to some services for free, such as emergency and GP care, and vaccines. Hospitals charge patients for non-urgent care if they don’t have the right visa.
It would be safer for everyone if undocumented migrants had equal access to healthcare. At present, they often avoid care for fear of costs and deportation, and are afraid to get vaccinated, creating a problem for public health.
Asylum seekers have a right to be here and the economy benefits.
Asylum seekers have a legal right to seek safety. Providing asylum is both a moral duty and an investment. Initial support may be expensive, but this is offset in most cases when refugees find work and begin paying taxes. Around 60-70% of those granted leave to remain in 2023 were of working age and the majority join the labour market.
Migration is not the reason the NHS is in crisis.
Evidence shows that migrants go to the GP or hospital 40% less than the average UK national. They are not the reason the NHS is in crisis.
The NHS is in acute crisis because of years of underfunding, outsourcing of resources and privatisation – the private sector makes huge profits out of the NHS.
End the scapegoating and save our NHS.
Migrants should not be blamed for pressures on public services mainly caused by austerity and failed policies.
The NHS should be properly funded, publicly provided and universally accessible.
(With thanks to Keep Our NHS Public)
In November 2025, the UK Parliament published a report illustrating what a vital part staff from abroad play in keeping our NHS afloat. This is a 10-minute read: NHS staff from overseas: statistics – House of Commons Library. Our NHS recruits nurses, doctors, ambulance staff, clinical support staff, care staff and more from abroad. And London has a very high proportion of staff from elsewhere, many of whom are now finding that although their skills are necessary to keep our NHS going, they are no longer being welcome by the Government.
North West London Healthcare: who looks after us?
Approximately 49% of health staff in NW London ICB area come from Black, Asian and minority healthcare backgrounds. Were the Government proposals to restrict health workforce visas in operation a generation back, these staff, most of whom are now British, would not have been working in our NHS. In fact, around 32% of NWL health staff are non-British.
Together with British colleagues they look after our health. There is nothing new in this situation. From 1948, when the NHS came into existence, many thousands of nurses, doctors and other health care staff came from Ireland and the Caribbean. Working together with British NHS staff they made the NHS into the one of the world’s best performing public health services. Without continuing recruitment from elsewhere, our NHS would gradually shut down. As we write, a paper on end of life/palliative care for NW London points out that the staffing situation for this vital service is ‘challenging’. In other words, they haven’t got the staff and difficulties in getting work visas for skilled staff from abroad will make a poor situation even worse.
‘Car Crash’
Recruiting NHS and related social care staff from the ‘domestic population’ is already very difficult. Poor pay, relentless work pressure leading to burn out, deteriorating work conditions for many categories of staff, a target driven health culture make recruitment and retention of staff difficult.
Already, 25,000 nursing positions remain unfilled but we are also short of care workers, nursing auxiliaries, specialist doctors, ambulance and dental staff and more. Care homes find it particularly difficult to recruit and hold on to staff.
‘Securing our borders’ may sound good to some politicians and to the right wing section of our media but meanwhile, back in real life, shortage of medical and care staff entails poorer quality of care or no care at all for very many of us. We need staff from abroad to work with local staff as traditionally has been the case in our NHS to keep our NHS and our care system functioning. See this short evidenced Guardian article from late February: Drop in overseas workers is ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts | Nursing | The Guardian
HAFSON, together with other with other London and national NHS campaigns will be joining a large demonstration against racism and in support of staff from abroad on Saturday March 28th in Central London.
HAFSON supporters will be meeting at Hammersmith Broadway – near the Piccadilly Line main entrance – at 12.30 on Saturday March 28th – with our HAFSON banner. Join us there – or at the demo. The Health Block will be meeting somewhere near the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane.