A LEADING campaigner has criticised Wes Streeting for his “anti-immigration rhetoric” after he said relying on migration to staff the NHS is “immoral”.
Labour’s shadow health secretary claimed the UK was “not investing in homegrown talent” by recruiting from overseas adding that the current set-up poses a “long-term strategic risk to the NHS”.
But while stressing there is an argument not to “poach” staff from countries that can’t afford to lose health workers, Dr Julia Patterson – CEO of EveryDoctor – said she was concerned about the arguments being put forward by Streeting.
EveryDoctor exists to try and protect the NHS, staff and patients from damaging policies.
Patterson said the NHS is “fortunate” to have staff from overseas who want to offer up their skills, adding they needed to be better supported.
Pointing out 19% of people who work in the NHS are from overseas, she said on Twitter/X: “We are heavily dependent on those staff coming to the NHS, making a home in the UK and offering us their skills and experience and enriching the NHS with all of that. We are so fortunate.
“There is definitely an argument to say that we shouldn’t be employing people from overseas because we sometimes poach staff from countries that can ill afford to lose their staff, that doesn’t seem to be the argument Wes Streeting is making.
“Instead, there’s an anti-immigration flavour to the rhetoric he’s putting out and I’m very concerned about a lot of the international staff who come to the NHS from overseas aren’t supported enough and we need to be doing more to welcome people from abroad.
“The reason for that is it takes years and years to train doctors and nurses and other allied healthcare professionals. We can’t just magic up an enormous new workforce of UK-grown medics. It doesn’t happen like that.”
Patterson added she would like to see politicians put things in place to increase medical school places and encourage students to take up health professions.
“But in the meantime we have 121,000 full-time jobs that are sitting empty in the NHS and those positions need to be filled and we should be encouraging people to come to the UK and offering up their skills. We should be supportive of anyone who chooses to do so,” she said.
Streeting also announced over the weekend that NHS staff in England would be told to work on evenings and weekends to slash waiting times if Labour won the next General Election.
However, MP Diane Abbott – who has been suspended from Labour – expressed confusion around this proposal.
She said on Twitter/X: “Wes Streeting claims he will cut NHS waiting lists by making staff work weekends. But doctors and nurses already work weekends, so what on earth is he talking about?”
Meanwhile, Streeting (above) sparked a major reaction in Scotland after he insisted “all roads lead to Westminster” when talking about the state of the NHS in Labour-run Wales.
He was challenged by Kuenssberg on whether his party could be trusted to run the NHS, given what she called the “terrible problems” in the Welsh health service, where Labour are in charge.
Streeting said: "Right across the UK every part of the NHS is in crisis and all roads do lead back to Westminster because even though this is devolved, decisions taken in Westminster have an impact on the NHS across the whole country."
