HOW THE GOVERNMENT F----- UP WITH
NHS FOREIGN WORKERS
by Sara Manfrè
During these months of pandemic,
National Health Services have been at
the centre of the news. In particular
the English NHS, with the imminent
arrival of Brexit at the beginning of
2021, questions the stability of many
jobs.
image Unsplash: H Shaw
18
From January 2021, free movement
in the UK will end and a new pointsbased
system will be introduced
as part of the new immigration
policies. Now, with 70 points, foreign
citizens will be able to work in the
UK. Point Three, the salary and skills
threshold, introduced by the Home
Secretary Priti Patel, states that
workers, in order to gain 50 extra
points, need to earn over £25,600.
Alfio Raciti is a foreign NHS
worker who shared his thoughts
on the matter, and answered a
few questions regarding their
work during this stressful and
unprecedented time.
Why did you decide to come to the UK
to work?
The reason why I chose to come to
UK to work was not an easy one. I
graduated from university in 2012
and I applied for many posts all
over Italy for nearly two years. But,
unfortunately, I was only able to get
shortlisted for a job in a region quite
far from mine, with no guarantee
at all to ever be shortlisted further.
I had kept in touch with some
colleagues of mine whom had moved
to UK and managed to register with
the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery
Council), to then fairly easily get
a job in the NHS. They were quite
satisfied with the registration and
hiring process. After a few months
of preparation, I decided to make the
move and try my luck in UK.
What has been the hardest part of your
job during COVID? How did you handle
the stress?
The COVID-19 pandemic has been
very challenging for the whole NHS
system. I, together with many, if not
all of my colleagues, tried my best to
handle the workload and the stress
as best as I could, although it was
not an easy task at all. Most of the
stress was due to the extremely poor
management of the whole crisis.
Such a crisis had never happened
before in the last 100 years or so,
hence it is understandable that the
system took some time to adjust and
face the pandemic in an appropriate
manner. What I still cannot explain is
that, when everywhere else in Europe
clinical staff were being protected
and provided with all sorts of PPE,
we were told by our managers not to
wear face masks as we would scare
the patients. Also, visitors were
allowed to swarm the wards at any
time of the day and night, with no
respect whatsoever for the safety of
the staff and patients. All of these
factors contributed to the escalating
numbers of members of staff going
on sick leave and the number of
doctors that had to be moved from
the wards to the ITU and A&E mainly,
once again depriving the patients
of decent care on the other wards.
And this has definitely had a huge
impact on the level of stress of the
remaining clinical staff whom had
to, and still have to, deal with the
consequences of the massively
delayed schedule of appointments
and community care over all.
Given Priti Patel's new immigration
policies, in particular, the salary
and skills thresholds, what are your
worries and thoughts regarding the
future of NHS foreign workers and
yours?
The new immigration policies are not
for me to critique, but as far as I'm
aware, NHS workers will be highly
regarded as they are and will be, even
more in the future, a very precious
asset for UK. Hence the doors will
always be open to them, regardless
of the nationality. In fact, I know
for a fact, that public trusts and
private owned hiring companies have
been and will be recruiting staff in
Europe and Asia, especially India and
Philippines, to staff the constantly
understaffed and overwhelmed UK
hospitals. The fact that the NHS and
NMC chiefs don't pay any attention
to the health and needs of their
workers will play the biggest role in
the privatisation of the NHS in the
very near future with horrendous
consequences for the service users.
“The government
behaved in the best
way they thought
possible, which
doesn’t mean they
behaved well.”
Will Brexit change the relationship
between NHS foreign workers and
Britain?
It already has. I was hired by my
Trust in 2016 and since then I have
seen a large number of foreign
clinical staff going back to their own
country, for many different reasons,
including worries over the Brexit
deal. I, myself, am leaving UK and
the NHS as I couldn't be any less
happy and disappointed with the
poor management of the NHS, the
taxation percentage, and the salary.
In conclusion, I believe, although
this is just my modest opinion,
the NHS will be soon lacking the
expertise of European trained clinical
staff and will be forced to look at
Asia as the primary source of NHS
workers, whom will be facilitated
into accustoming into the system
with more difficulties and challenges
because of a rather different training
background.