News

Rise in overseas nurse recruits – but premature leavers cause concern

Latest NMC register data show record number of joiners last year, but regulator says reasons why nurses leave are giving ‘clear warnings about workplace pressures’
Photo of overseas nurse with patient, illustrating story about rise in overseas recruits

Latest NMC register data show record number of joiners last year, but regulator says reasons why nurses leave are giving ‘clear warnings about workplace pressures’

Photo of overseas nurse with patient, illustrating story about rise in overseas recruits
Picture: Neil O'Connor

A record number of nursing staff and midwives joined the UK register last year, with almost half of these trained overseas.

Annual register data published by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) today shows there were 52,148 new joiners in the year to March 2023, of which 25,006 were internationally educated. This is up 610% from five years ago when there were 3,522 international joiners.

The NMC said the number of new joiners is the highest since its register was introduced in 2002. The number of UK-educated joiners also rose 8.5% from the previous year, to 27,142.

Critics point to ‘over-reliance on staff from overseas’

India, the Philippines and Nigeria were the top three countries from which international recruits joined the register last year, the report states.

The UK government has long faced criticism for its over-reliance on international recruits to plug workforce shortages – especially from ‘red-list’ countries, where active recruitment is not permitted by the World Health Organization.

RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said: ‘While internationally educated nursing staff are a vital and valued part of the NHS, the over-reliance on staff from overseas, including those countries with shortages of their own, is not sustainable.’

NHS Providers deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said: ‘We must invest massively to train the number of home-grown staff the NHS needs alongside colleagues from abroad.’

Myriad reasons why nurses leave profession

But despite the record rise in the number of recruits, the nursing regulator issued a stark warning about the number of professionals leaving the profession prematurely. While the number of leavers dropped slightly from the previous year to just under 27,000, the NMC said the reasons given for leaving ‘throw up some clear warning signs’ for employers.

After retirement, the NMC said the five ‘compounding workplace factors’ that frequently influenced people’s decision to leave were burnout and exhaustion, lack of support from colleagues, and concerns about the quality of care, workload and staffing levels.

Nurse says their ‘department was severely overcrowded’ with patients

One nurse in their 30s working in a secondary care setting said they left because ‘the job wasn’t the same anymore’.

‘I always loved being a nurse but sadly it came to the stage of burnout for me,’ the nurse added. ‘Instead of leaving work feeling I had helped someone, I was leaving work worried that someone was left gravely ill as the department was severely overcrowded.’

The data also showed that more than half (52%) of leavers left the register earlier than planned, and most – including younger leavers – said they did not plan to return.

A nurse in their early 60s said they had retired earlier than they had wanted to due to a lack of staff, high caseloads and ‘increasing demands on staff without improved resources’.

Workplace pressures driving staff exodus

NMC chief executive Andrea Sutcliffe said: ‘While recruitment remains strong, there are clear warnings about the workplace pressures driving people away from the professions.’

The figures bear out recent analysis by the RCN, which found that tens of thousands of nurses at ‘early stages in their careers’ had left the profession in the past five years.


In other news

Jobs