Dido Harding is wrong – the NHS would cease to function without foreign-born staff

We are lucky to have the skill and dedication of our international colleagues, and we welcome them as part of our NHS team, writes Dr Julia Patterson

Chairwoman of NHS Improvement, Dido Harding, has vowed to end the NHS’s reliance on foreign staff (AFP via Getty Images)

Dido Harding has made headlines for declaring that she wants to “make the NHS less reliant on foreigners”.

I think it’s important that we take a minute to reflect on who Dido Harding is speaking about when she talks about “foreigners”. Around 170,000 of the 1.28 million NHS staff working in the UK are on a visa; it takes up to 10 years to qualify for permanent residency in the UK.

Many of these staff members have trained at UK medical schools and universities. Others have been actively recruited from countries that can ill afford to lose their own staff. Our international colleagues travel to the UK to make careers, lives and homes here. They form an integral part of the NHS, and without their skills and dedication, the NHS would cease to function.

On the Covid-19 frontlines, and always, our international colleagues and “homegrown” staff work side-by-side. The NHS is a multicultural workplace; it’s one of its huge strengths. Dido Harding’s words exhibit xenophobia, which we will not tolerate within the NHS. The reaction of thousands of EveryDoctor members and supporters was immediate and united – they took to platforms such as Twitter to condemn this divisive view. At one stage, our hashtag #InclusiveNHS was trending.

Instead of sowing division in the NHS workforce and undervaluing our colleagues, Dido Harding should be focussing on the huge problems facing the NHS and seeking to support all staff through the biggest health crisis our NHS has ever faced. After over a decade of austerity cuts, the NHS is woefully underfunded and missing more than 100,000 staff. Any prospective candidate for the NHS England top job has a lot of work to do.

Firstly, Harding should be demonstrating that she values the incredible contributions of healthcare workers on visas. Instead of making our international colleagues feel unwelcome, she should suggest that the UK government offers citizenship to those who have worked on the Covid-19 frontlines (as France has done for their international healthcare staff).

Secondly, she should be considering the conditions all NHS staff are currently working under and looking to improve these. Student nurse bursaries (removed by the UK government in 2017) should be reinstated. Chronic real-term pay cuts should be reversed. Staff need support, not steadily worsening working conditions.

The delivery of safe, high-quality patient care is at the very heart of the NHS. Those staff who were born, or raised, or trained overseas contribute to this mission every minute of every day in our NHS.

The care that the NHS is able to deliver would be significantly less effective and less safe without them. Healthcare workers and their patients know this. They know that we need every one of these members of staff, that we are lucky to have them, and that we welcome them as part of the NHS team.

Any prospective NHS England Chief Executive should think carefully about what the NHS is. The NHS isn’t a logo, or a brand, or a hospital. It’s a group of dedicated, skilled, incredible staff from over 200 countries. And every single NHS staff member should be valued and supported by any candidate applying to lead NHS England.

Dr Julia Patterson is the CEO of EveryDoctor