We still need international applicants

The Interim NHS People Plan (NHS England et al, 2019) dedicates a chapter to tackling the nursing crisis, citing shortages in nursing as ‘the single biggest and most urgent we need to address’. The multifaceted strategy to close the gap identifies the need to reach a supply balance for nursing that meets the demands of health and care services, centred on a domestically grown workforce. However, it recognises that, given the lead times for training nurses, in the short to medium term we need to increase international recruitment of nurses to the UK.

I have just returned from Kerala in Southern India. This was the third time that my Trust has been to recruit nurses in this region and, while NHS England and NHS Improvement and Healthcare Education England advance plans to co-ordinate system recruitment, and develop a national procurement framework and toolkit, I wanted to share my views and reflections on the trip.