- Conference
- 2011 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 2 December 2010
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes the positive effect migration has had on the NHS, in fact almost since its inception the NHS has relied on migrant workers, when in 1949 a recruitment campaign targeted nurses and doctors from the Caribbean, Malaysia as well as other parts of the Commonwealth. They were recruited after the war to combat the shortfall in medical and nursing staff. Conference again notes the campaign 10 years ago when there was a massive shortfall in the number of nurses within the UK. Nurses were actively recruited into the NHS and have been serving hospitals, GP surgeries and care homes. These recruitment drives have led to a diverse mix of staff within the NHS leading to a NHS which better reflects the society it serves.
Migration within the NHS equates to:
•30% of new doctors
•40% of new dentists
•13% of all NHS workers
•10% of nursing assistants
•16% of nurses come from Black and Asian backgrounds with 44,000 nurses trained overseas
•30% of NHS workers were born overseas and are crucial to the NHS
Migration also:
•Contributes positively to our economic growth
•An increase in the public purse from collection of taxes which contributes to services for UK born residents
•The whole of the public sector relies on migration to function
•Students from overseas contribute massively to UK universities and a reduction in the number of student visas would be devastating to the funding of these institutions. Overseas students are worth around £8.5bn to the UK economy
The ConDem government’s introduction of an immigration cap is further evidence of their ideological attack on the public sector. As the intra-company route is not available to the NHS it means that a 25% reduction has been applied to the supply of visas available. Conference further notes that the cap will only affect non-EU migration as the Government is unable to cap EU migration. This means that the non-EU immigration cap is seen as the Government introducing a policy which it knows will be damaging to the economy and public services simply to save Cameron’s face over a pre-election promise to “cut immigration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands”. The cap has been seen by many as arbitrary and motivated by political means rather than practical means leading one GP to commenting that it won’t work and may inflict serious harm on the NHS.
Doctors, nurses and trade unions are warning the government to rethink its policy of introducing a permanent immigration cap. Within the NHS they have been warned that the NHS could come to a standstill if it is imposed. Hospitals will be unable to recruit and fill vacancies if the cap has been reached before the year end. At this time when the NHS is facing unprecedented changes from the Government’s white paper “Liberating the NHS” when all this cap aims to do for the NHS is to liberate it from its highly skilled and diverse workforce.
Within the NHS, Black and Asian health professionals are usually found in the less glamorous and lowest paid specialities. We know that many have faced prejudice, racism and slow career progression within their NHS career. It is also evident that Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) are underrepresented within the management structures of NHS hospital trusts and primary care trusts leading to a higher proportion of disciplinaries, grievances, bullying and harassment cases and capability cases. To implement this immigration cap is nothing short of insulting to the BME community who have worked so hard and contributed so much to our NHS.
Conference therefore calls on the Service Group Executive to:
1) Continue to highlight the positive contribution immigration has on the NHS;
2) Work with the Labour Link to lobby MPs to oppose the immigration cap;
3) Ensure this work is highlighted in our work to defend the NHS, notably the” Our NHS Our Future” campaign, building local and national alliances;
4) Promote the negative effect that the immigration cap will have on the NHS;
5) Engage with branches, self-organised groups, regions and the wider membership to continue highlighting the positive contribution immigration has on the NHS and produce “myth-busters” to counter the allegations made by far right groups;
6) Promote the work already done in organising migrant workers through the Hidden Workforce campaign.
Newcastle Hospitals