Thank you to a mutual for pointing out that this was the day the take arrived. https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1249396097296093195

For the record, 100k a year net migration typically represents a gross inflow of 400-500k/pa, so would give massive scope to increase health and care workforce from migration leaving aside the >85% of the existing workforce which could also be reallocated.

To give an idea of the *actual* numbers being met by migrant supply, remember that the Coronavirus 1 year extension to NHS workers facing visa expiry affected just 2.8k workers over the next 6 months. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nhs-frontline-workers-visas-extended-so-they-can-focus-on-fighting-coronavirus

In the 2010s, a period of extremely high immigration, NHS workers from outside the EU accounted for around 40% of the Tier 2 skilled worker visa quota - totalling 20,700, so ~8,000 a year. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/doctors-and-nurses-to-be-taken-out-of-tier-2-visa-cap

So the idea that *more* than 500,000 new arrivals are necessary to meet health and care workforce needs is not credible. Even if recent inflows were insufficient to meet new demands, a move to much greater skills selectivity would be able to manage easily within those volumes.

And if there is a need for an enlarged health & care workforce, a functioning labour market will signal and attract workers from other industries and new entrants. “British workers won’t take those jobs” fails as a claim if it doesn’t caveat “conditional on current pay rates”.

But as ever the reason for the claim is to use health and care as an appealing totem around which to rally again the case for more immigration. Whatever the problem (even if international mobility contributes!), the solution is always the same.

There are many excellent migrant workers in the NHS, but their presence is the result of a recruitment choice, and others could’ve been made. Gratitude to current migrant workers doesn’t require sticking to ever more migration as a future workforce strategy.