The United Kingdom is set to
exclude medical staff from the government’s visa cap.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief
executive of NHS Providers, told BBC Radio on Thursday that the rules are
making it difficult to recruit enough staff.
Theresa May, UK prime minister,
introduced the visa limit for all non-EU skilled workers at 20,700 people a
year.
“This is going to be a huge
relief for trusts up and down the country who have been really struggling to
fill their doctors and nurses vacancies,” Cordery said.
“Lifting the visa cap for foreign
doctors and nurses is absolutely the right decision and a huge relief.”
The proposed changes will affect
the Tier 2 visas, which are used by skilled workers from outside the European
Economic Area and Switzerland.
In April, NHS bosses said the
immigration rules were hindering their ability to find workers after 100 Indian
doctors were refused.
In February, NHS England said it
had vacancies for 35,000 nurse vacancies and nearly 10,000 doctors.
Although the proposed change will
only apply to doctors and nurses, it would free up visas for workers from other
industries.
As at December 2017, it was
reported that 5,060 Nigerian doctors were registered in the UK; a figure that
rose to 5,250 as at April 2018.
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