Potential impacts of labour migration policies on the PH workforce
Governmental imposed restrictions on certain skill level categories of migrant workers may impact those parts of the public health (PH) workforce which make use of migrant labour.
The idea of managed migration policies for non EU labour is highly contentious. The current economic downturn is a major political and policy pre-occupation, out of which have come debates about the value of economic migration in general. The NHS, including social care, has historically been highly dependent on overseas workers at all levels (doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, laboratory technicians; as well as management and support workers, such as hospital managers, financial officers, cooks, ideas and cleaners). The degree to which public health service delivery is similarly directly dependent, or the degree of dependency of associated care provision on overseas labour is currently unclear. In general, the restriction of migrant flows of labour as sources of recruitment into health care may both limit and increase the cost of service and delivery. It is unlikely that any capacity shortfalls in both the short and medium term can, or will be corrected through training and retraining of the current health workforce. Additionally, anxieties in traditionally 'sending' countries (e.g. South Africa), about out-migration flows of their health workers, will lead to measures which will affect recruitment possibilities to labour markets here. Among other effects, this may have serious consequences in view of the ageing profile of the health workforce.
Sources or references
- International Recruitment of Health Workers to the UK: A Report for DFID (2007) Buchan, J., DFID Health Systems Resource Centre, Feb 2004
- Workforce Statistics: NHS and Social Services
- Stephen Bach, ILO Geneva (July 2003) International migration of health workers: Labour and social ideas
- International Labour Migration: a UNISON Discussion Paper
Some of the information in this section is provided by stakeholders and expert groups, and does not necessarily represent the views of the CfWI.
