All Government Departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules. Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.

More broadly, the Government will be consulting in due course on how we work with business to ensure that workers in this country have the skills that they need to get a job. But there are no proposals to publish lists of the number or proportion of foreign workers.

There are no centrally held data on the countries from which NHS staff are recruited, but self-reported nationality data suggest that 15,723 non-UK European nationals joined the NHS in England and that 7,900 left, leaving a net increase of 7,800. As the Minister responsible for the NHS workforce, may I say that every single one of them is very welcome in, and provides an invaluable contribution to, our NHS?

How many staff working in the NHS have been recruited from other European countries in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

The problem is that the Immigration Minister’s waffle yesterday and Ministers’ warm words today are not giving confidence to these vital NHS employees. Has the Minister spoken to the Immigration Minister to request that he guarantee permanent residence to every EU national working in the NHS so that they can have the security that they—and we, their patients—need?

There has been a 27% surge in trainee applications to NHS Scotland because of the conflict around the junior doctors contract in England, and now doctors and academics from the EU are not taking up posts here because of the Brexit vote. With a one-in-four rota gap in many specialities, how does the Minister plan to sustain the current service, let alone extend it?

I thank the Minister for that and for his welcome to EU nationals here, but with the Secretary of State merely repeating what the Immigration Minister said yesterday and given what the Home Secretary has said, does he not understand the urgent situation facing EU nationals working here? With more than 100,000 of them, do we not want to give them security of residency now to avoid haemorrhaging vital staff from the NHS?

The head of the NHS, Simon Stevens, has strongly defended the role of immigrants in the NHS, saying that there has never been a time in its 68-year history when the NHS has not

“relied on committed employees from around the world”.

One of these employees was my own mother, who migrated from Jamaica to the UK in the 1950s to be a pupil nurse. Workers from the EU and other countries are the backbone not just of the NHS but of our social care system, which is facing many challenges. Does the Minister agree that we should be thanking these hard-working individuals for their service, not leaving them with questions about their status and job security?

The number of nurses that will need to be recruited from abroad to maintain levels of health care provision during the 2016-17 financial year is a matter for local National Health Service organisations with their knowledge of the healthcare needs of their local populations.

Local organisations must ensure they have sufficient levels of nurses to deliver safe and sustainable care. We remain committed to moving forwards towards a self-sustaining workforce and to reduce the demand for migrant labour, including nurses. Nurses have been included on the Home Office’s Shortage Occupation list but this Government remains committed to the principle that our nurses should be able to secure the jobs they are qualified for. Employers will have to satisfy the resident labour market test before they can employ a nurse from outside of the European Economic Area.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre collects data on the number of staff working in National Health Service hospital and community health services (HCHS) in England.

Nationality is a self-reported field within the electronic staff record system. The following table shows the number of HCHS staff from other European Union (EU) countries who declared their nationality who work in the NHS in England and in London.

Information on the number of employees from other EU countries working in London is only available for those people working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups.

Source: Health and Social Care Information Centre, NHS Hospital and Community Health Service workforce statistics

Information on how many employees working in the NHS have no recourse to public funds is not available.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre collects data on the number of staff working in National Health Service hospital and community health services (HCHS) in England.

Nationality is a self-reported field within the electronic staff record system. The following table shows the number of HCHS staff from other European Union (EU) countries who declared their nationality who work in the NHS in England and in London.

Information on the number of employees from other EU countries working in London is only available for those people working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups.

Source: Health and Social Care Information Centre, NHS Hospital and Community Health Service workforce statistics

Information on how many employees working in the NHS have no recourse to public funds is not available.

Local National Health Service organisations are best placed to decide how many staff they employ and how best to recruit those staff to meet services tailored to the needs of their patients and local communities, to deliver safe care. Information on the costs that NHS trusts may have incurred when seeking to employ staff either within the United Kingdom or overseas is not collected by the Department.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre collects data on the number of staff working in National Health Service hospital and community health services (HCHS) in England.

Nationality is a self-reported field within the electronic staff record system. The following table shows the number of HCHS staff from other European Union (EU) countries who declared their nationality who work in the NHS in England and in London.

Information on the number of employees from other EU countries working in London is only available for those people working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups.

Source: Health and Social Care Information Centre, NHS Hospital and Community Health Service workforce statistics

Information on how many employees working in the NHS have no recourse to public funds is not available.

We remain committed to moving forwards towards a self-sustaining workforce and to reduce the demand for migrant labour, including nurses. In addition to increasing the number of nurses training places, Health Education England are investing almost £5 million in the Return to Practice programme, aimed at encouraging and supporting nurses who are no longer working to gain relevant training to return to work.

We are also providing £40 million in leadership training to create a new generation of senior nurses and ensuring preceptorship is available to support newly qualified nurses in their first year of working.

Data from the Home Office shows that no visas were issued to people employed by ambulance services in the last five years for roles other than paramedics. Paramedics were placed on the United Kingdom’s shortage occupation list in April 2015 and are therefore exempt from the requirement to earn £35,000 whilst the role is on the shortage occupation list.

The information requested is not held by the Department. The nine health and care professional regulatory bodies within the United Kingdom are responsible for operational matters concerning the discharge of their statutory duties including fitness-to-practise (FtP) investigations in respect of their registrants. Relevant information provided by the General Medical Council (GMC) and General Dental Council (GDC) is included below.

The GMC reports that four European Economic Area (EEA) doctors and no non-EEA doctors have appeared at a tribunal due wholly or partly to lack of English language skills, since its legislation changed in June 2014 to introduce inadequate English language skills as a grounds for finding a doctor’s fitness to practise is impaired. Of the four, two were suspended and two had conditions imposed on their registration. Conditions restrict a doctor’s practice or require them to take remedial action. In these cases, the purpose of conditions is to help protect patients while allowing the doctor to remedy any deficiencies in their practice or knowledge of English. This amends the answer given in PQ25540 on 8 February 2016.

In addition, since the GMC was given new powers in relation to the language skills of doctors, it has dealt with 3,289 registration applications from EEA doctors. 1,970 of them were able to demonstrate that they met the English language requirements as part of their application and were granted registration with a licence to practise. 1,319 doctors were registered but have not been granted a licence to practise either because they did not provide any evidence of their English language skills or the evidence they provided was insufficient. Doctors cannot practise in the United Kingdom without a licence to practise.

The GDC has been taking the requirement to be sufficiently fluent in written and spoken English into account when assessing FtP cases since it updated its Standards in 2013. Since this change there has been one EEA dentist brought before a FtP panel who was not suspended where the category of ‘not fluent in English’ was recorded as consideration. The decision of the FtP panel was to remove this dentist from the GDC register.

Overseas nurses and their contribution to the National Health Service was discussed with the Home Office Secretary on 17 June 2015 in a scheduled bilateral meeting.

The information requested is not held by the Department. The nine health and care professional regulatory bodies within the United Kingdom are responsible for operational matters concerning the discharge of their statutory duties including fitness-to-practise (FtP) investigations against their registrants. Relevant information provided by the General Medical Council (GMC), Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and General Dental Council (GDC) is included below.

The GMC reports that four European Economic Area (EEA) doctors and no non-EEA doctors have appeared at a FtP tribunal and been suspended due wholly or partly to lack of English language skills, since its legislation changed in June 2014 to introduce inadequate English language skills as a grounds for finding a doctor’s fitness to practise is impaired. In addition, since the GMC was given new powers in relation to the language skills of doctors, it has dealt with 3,289 registration applications from EEA doctors. 1,970 of them were able to demonstrate that they met the English language requirements as part of their application and were granted registration with a licence to practise. 1,319 doctors were registered but have not been granted a licence to practise either because they did not provide any evidence of their English language skills or the evidence they provided was insufficient. Doctors cannot practise in the UK without a licence to practise.

The NMC reports that until legislative change took effect in January 2016, it did not record poor English language skills as a case type within FtP. Previously all cases were recorded under an umbrella category of ‘Lack of competence – communication issues’. This category covered a range of communication topics including failure to delegate appropriately. Since the new language control power was introduced in 2016 the NMC has been coding English language skills as a separate code.

The GDC reports that following an update to its Standards in 2013, it takes the requirement to be sufficiently fluent in written and spoken English into account when assessing FtP cases. Since this change there have been no suspensions and one EEA Dentist has been struck-off the GDC register where the category of ‘not fluent in English’ was recorded as a consideration. The GDC notes that as a result of recent legislative change, it is taking forward associated changes to registration processes and FtP rules, which will result in further language control requirements being introduced by the end of summer.

The Government assessment undertaken to date is that nursing is consistently one of the most popular courses on University Central Administration Service (fifth), with 57,000 applicants for around 20,000 nursing places in 2014. Midwifery and Allied Health Professional courses receive higher than average applications as well.

A maximum £9,000 tuition fee for other subjects at higher education institutions was introduced in 2012. Between 2012 and 2014 the number of English domiciled applicants to enter full-time undergraduate courses in the United Kingdom increased by 7.5% (from 454,000 in 2012 to 487,870 in 2014).

We estimate that the reforms will allow universities to be able to offer up to 10,000 more nursing, midwifery and allied health training over this parliament. Nursing is currently on the Home Office Shortage Occupation List (SOL) and we recognise the valuable contribution that international nurses have and will continue to make but the Government is committed to reducing the need for overseas nurses within this parliament, nursing will only stay on the SOL list for as long as they are needed.

The European Professional Card (EPC) will not be introduced for doctors until 2018 at the earliest.

The European Commission will review the effectiveness of the EPC process for the first wave of professions, which includes nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists, before any decision is taken to extend the EPC to other professions.