NHS Spanish nurses leaving after Brexit

One of the key reasons that lead Britain to leave the European Union was more increased funding for the NHS. Consequently, healthcare workers are too.

Across the country, the number of EU nationals registered as nurses and midwives has decreased after the Brexit vote in 2016. The nursing staff has been the only occupational group to record a fall in the number of EU workers since the EU referendum.

According to a Parliament report published last year, looking at individual nationalities, only Spanish nationals have seen a substantial record decrease since June 2016, from 7,240 to 6,160, coming to a fall of 15%. Resulting in three Spanish out of 20 are leaving.

But is BREXIT the reason the Spanish are leaving?

Undoubtedly, a deficiency of staff in the NHS has arisen across the whole country, leaving the country with a larger quantity of health care workers needed.

Virginia Rodríguez, a 39-year-old Spanish nurse from Cadiz currently working at Eastbourne District Hospital, is leaving the hospital this month. She has been working at the Medical Short Stay and Frailty Unit for three years.

“We started as a group of ten, all of us nurses from different parts of Spain, and now we are only two. There is no clarity about how our future is going to be if we stay here," Virginia says.

“It is true that there is a lack of staff due to people returning to their countries. There have been many times when our ward only two nurses for a 12-hour night shift with 31 patients has, so there is no doubt the NHS needs more staff.

“I don't believe Brexit had an impact on the way my patients treat me, but I must say that sometimes I have had patients that tell me they want to be looked after by an English nurse, which I understand because if I were them, I would also like to be taken care by someone from my country. Unfortunately for them, in some shifts, we are all foreigners."

Virginia explained why nurses like her are going back to Spain. When you are a Spanish health care worker employed in Britain, you obtain points and accumulate them to have higher possibilities to work in Spain and, with Brexit, they will not be getting any.

"Those points increase our chances to find a job in Spain, which these days is not easy," she says. Brexit will mean our work here would not count in Spain, and that's why we are."

According to the East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, an integrated trust that provides different services from Eastbourne District General Hospital, Conquest Hospital in Hastings, Bexhill Hospital and Rye, to Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital; from June 2016 to February 2019, 221 headcount staff with European nationality left the trust.

An almost 10% of the EU staff in the Trust were Spanish.

Over a six-month period, the number of NON-UK staff working at Eastbourne District General hospital decreased by 7,38% and, nursing and midwifery staff decreased by 8,74 %.

Created on Numbers by Natacha Andueza.

Vikki Carruth, Director of Nursing for the East Sussex Health Care, stated: "Healthcare has a very mobile workforce and, the NHS generally has large numbers of staff from all over the world. It is wide- known that the NHS would struggle without all of its dedicated and hardworking staff. The NHS needs to have the right staff with the right skills and values, regardless of where they are originally from."

Vikki is a registered nurse who joined the trust as Director of Nursing in 2017.

Eastbourne District General Hospital holds 169 different nationalities from five continents. The staff coming from Europe is the highest and the higher affected by Brexit.

Created on Numbers by Natacha Andueza.

There are currently 40 vacancies in the nursing sector in the East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, adding to that, the number of vacancies that have not been emptied yet.

East Sussex Health Care NHS Trust said they ensure they support the staff eligible for the EU settlement scheme. They have identified all staff by profession and area, indicating that the key areas that demand employment are medical and nursing.

A recent BBC article explains the impact of a new overseas recruitment campaign that the NHS has begun.

The campaign aims to replace the EU workers with different foreigners instead of opening those positions to British workers, which was the opposite of what the United Kingdom expect initially in the vote to leave the EU.

EU healthcare workers are leaving for diverse reasons and, the government cannot stop them. The health system requires a constant flow of workers coming to Britain and, the uncertainty that they face is turning them away.

Not only the health system needs them, but the patients also need them much more. The NHS relies on the overseas workforce as well as the patients do. Data and statistics have shown that the healthcare system depends on foreign labor.