Boris Johnsons Rhetoric can't produce the extra nurses the NHS desperately needs – Byline Times

A new report from the National Audit Office reveals that there were 43,000 nursing positions at the end of September last. What is the Prime Minister's plan to address them and how will his new points-based immigration system help?

Boris Johnson said the NHS will always be my top priority, so what will he do with conclusions from a new National Audit Office (NAO) report that shows the NHS does not have the number nurses he needs?

According to the report, while the number of nurses working in the NHS increased by 5% overall between 2010 and 2019, there were still more than 43,000 vacancies reported by NHS trusts in July until September 2019.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly pledged additional funds, resources and staff for the NHS, including 50,000 additional nurses. But there is no indication that he actually intends to keep his repeated promises. Indeed, in the days leading up to the 2019 general election, he admitted that only 31,000 of his 50,000 additional nurses would be new additional nurses. This is well below the 43,000 vacancies identified in the NAO report until last September.

Johnson's NHSLong Term Plan Funding Bill aims to spend an additional $ 33.9 billion a year by 2024 on the NHS, but arguably little more than a smokescreen. If this cash injection is viewed in real terms, the actual increase would be an additional $ 20.5 billion per year for the NHS, exactly the amount announced by its predecessor Theresa May in the summer of 2018. In the summer of 2018 At the time, the Health Foundation warned that this amount was simply not enough to meet the fundamental challenges facing the NHS or to fund essential improvements to shrinking services.

Recruiting new nurses will be further complicated by government plans to introduce a point-based immigration system, with skilled migrants only able to enter the UK if they have a job offer of more than 25 600 incomes per year. Points will also be awarded for key requirements such as an offer of employment by an approved sponsor, ability to speak fluent English, or an offer of employment that meets the "skill level required". Thousands of potential migrant nurses wishing to occupy junior positions in the UK could be immediately excluded as the majority of junior nurse positions have an annual income of 18,000 to 25,000.

Johnson heads a government in danger of cutting the pipeline supply of new nurses through regressive immigration screening criteria. Given the potential growing pressures the NHS faces with any escalation of the Coronavirus, the demand for additional staff within an already stretched NHS could lead to an unprecedented crisis in the supply of NHS staff.

In the G7 countries, health care spending per person in the United Kingdom is now the second lowest, far behind France and Germany. With general practitioners acting as gatekeepers to costly hospital treatment, the NHS is required to provide a fragmented service at low cost, with long waits for A&E care, cancer treatment and operations and beds.

England currently has one of the worst hospital beds per 1,000 people, a ratio of 2.3 according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, compared to 13 in Japan; 12 in South Korea; eight in Russia and Germany; six in France; 4.5 in Switzerland; 4.3 in China; 4.2 in Scotland, 3.8 in Australia; 3.6 in Italy; 2.97 in Spain; 2.96 in Ireland; and 2.77 in the United States.

When considering the imminent threat of coronavirus health care, spot the problem for the NHS in England.

In the 2016 EU referendum, high-level Brexiters informed the public that immigrants were filling general practitioners' offices and hospitals. They are as doctors, nurses, cleaners and health scientists from the UK. Migrant health workers come here to save lives and without them the NHS would be ill-equipped and under-resourced.

According to a 2019 report from Health Foundation, the number of vacant nursing positions could reach 100,000 in a decade, which will be particularly likely if the number of migrant nurses decreases due to a prohibitive new immigration system put in place by the government.

The NHS in England has no chance of training enough general practitioners and nurses to solve the shortages it faces. A report from Nuffield Trust, Health Foundation and King’s Fund predicted that over the next five years, the nursing shortage will double and the gaps with general practitioners will triple, with no drastic action. International recruitment, scholarships and innovation are necessary.

When Boris Johnson talks about his prioritization of the NHS and his promises to fund and fund it adequately, the only thing we can probably believe is to believe the opposite of what he actually says . The question is: how much longer will the Teflon Premiers empty the rhetoric on one of the most vital questions that are important to all of us, avoiding scrutiny and responsibility?

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