Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what contingency plans his Department has made for a reduction in the number of EU nationals working as nurses in the NHS as a result of the UK leaving the EU.

The Department values highly the enormous contribution of all the nurses working across our health and care sector from across the European Union and the rest of the world.

At the end of June 2017, there were 3,193 more non-United Kingdom EU citizens working in the National Health Service than at the end of June 2016.

The Prime Minister has been very clear that EU citizens living lawfully in the UK will be allowed to stay.

We continue to monitor closely and to analyse overall staffing levels across the NHS and social care, and we’re working across Government to ensure there will continue to be sufficient staff to deliver the high quality service on which patients rely following the UK’s exit from the EU.

We are also working hard to improve the domestic supply of nurses to ensure the NHS and social care sector are able to meet current and future nursing workforce demand. We are increasing the number of nurse training places by 25%, introducing new routes into the profession through the Nursing Degree Apprenticeship, and increasing the number of Nursing Associates.