\n<\/p>\n
Your report on the 93% fall in overseas nurses (Drop in overseas workers is \u2018car crash\u2019 for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts, 26 February) lays bare how dependent the UK has become on international recruitment. When visa policy shifts can trigger warnings of an \u201cimpending car crash\u201d, it shows a\u00a0workforce model built on fragility,\u00a0not resilience.<\/p>\n
For years, the UK \u2013 like other high-income countries \u2013 has relied on internationally educated nurses to fill domestic shortages. That may have eased immediate pressures, but it masked chronic underinvestment in training, pay\u00a0and retention at home. Tightening migration without first building self-sufficiency simply exposes that failure.<\/p>\n
But there is also a global dimension. Many of the countries the UK recruits from have far fewer nurses per capita and can ill afford to lose experienced staff. As nurses\u00a0tell us repeatedly, sustainable workforce policy must work for both sides.<\/p>\n
The UK now has an opportunity to lead and commit to genuine domestic self-sufficiency while working with other major recruiting nations to establish a co-investment mechanism \u2013 potentially a global fund for nurse education \u2013 so that countries benefiting from international recruitment also reinvest in those they recruit from.<\/p>\n
Migration should not be a tap turned on and off. It must be ethical, planned and mutually beneficial. Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your report on the 93% fall in overseas nurses (Drop in overseas workers is \u2018car crash\u2019 for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts, 26 February) lays bare how dependent the UK has become on international recruitment. When visa policy shifts can trigger warnings of an \u201cimpending car crash\u201d, it shows a\u00a0workforce model built on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[6352,2760,2155,2839,514],"class_list":{"0":"post-45743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-nurses","9":"tag-nursing","10":"tag-overseas","11":"tag-recruiting","12":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Howard Catton<\/strong>
CEO, International Council of Nurses<\/em><\/p>\n