Former Tory health secretary calls on Theresa May to scrap her own visa cap to help NHS

Exclusive: Stephen Dorrell tells The Independent that the cap should be reconsidered to help the NHS recruit

May introduced the system of visa quotas for skilled workers in 2011 (Getty)

A former Tory health secretary is calling on Theresa May to urgently review a visa-cap system she created which now risks plunging the NHS into a staffing crisis.

Stephen Dorrell told The Independent that the cap on visas for non-EU skilled workers must be rethought in the light of a squeeze on NHS workers coming from Europe.

The monthly limit was reached for the first time since 2015 in December and has been hit every month since, as health trusts and firms scramble to hire globally to make up for lower arrivals across the channel since the referendum.

Official data released only this week again showed EU net migration falling, with 130,000 Europeans leaving the country – the highest recorded level since the 2008 financial crisis.

Former health secretary Mr Dorrell, who also chairs the NHS Confederation, said: “We know there is a staffing shortage, a recruitment problem for our health service.

“We also know there’s been a numerical fall in the number coming in from the EU and a compensating increase, to the extent allowed, has come from non-EU workers.

“But if the staffing requirements are not being met in our current circumstances then, then we need to look at what can be done. Any visa quota absolutely should be looked at again.”

Ms May introduced an annual quota of 20,700 for tier-2 work visas when she was home secretary in 2011, with a set number of places allocated each month, but the limit was never hit until the end of 2017.

With more applications now going in, the minimum salary for a job to qualify for a skilled work visa – previously £30,000 – was hiked to £55,000 in December and in January, £46,000, making staff more expensive to hire.

NHS employers, thought to account for around a third of all the places allocated, have been pushing the Home Office to exempt medical workers from the quota as they recruit beyond the EU.

Last year, data obtained through a freedom of information request showed that the number of nurses from the EU registering to work in the UK dropped by a staggering 96 per cent – from 1,304 in July 2016, to 46 in April 2017.

Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth said: “We have a workforce crisis in the NHS thanks to Theresa May’s utter incompetence over many years.

“Theresa May’s red tape is stopping hospitals from recruiting the staff needed. Patients deserve better.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is important that our immigration system works in the national interest, ensuring that employers look first to the UK resident labour market before recruiting from overseas.

“The tier-2 visa route is intended to fill gaps in the labour market. When demand exceeds the month’s allocation of tier-2 (general) visas, priority is given to applicants filling a shortage or PhD-level occupations.

“The published shortage lists include a range of medical professionals, including consultants specialising in clinical radiology, emergency medicine and all nurses, and we estimate that around a third of all tier-2 places go to the NHS.”