We need a sensible discussion about immigration. Specifically, we need a discussion about immigration and the NHS. In order to solve the retention and recruitment issues in the NHS, not only do we need to pay staff better wages, we need to improve working conditions. And part of that means solving issues with not having enough staff.
The government keep saying that more staff are coming, look at the promises made, and broken about the numbers of GP's in 2015 as well as the subsequent promise made in the 2019 election. So we have to accept that the government policy is not working.
When Labour was running the NHS, it increased numbers of staff quickly by recruiting from abroad in the way that Australia, Canada and New Zealand do so now with NHS staff. We can say no more immigrants, or we can have a decent points based system in addition to making things better for NHS staff to solve the staffing issues faced.
