Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on the adequacy of the number of physicians in the West Midlands.

The Department continues to monitor and analyse overall staffing levels in the National Health Service and adult social care across the West Midlands, as it does the whole of England. We are working across Government to ensure there will continue to be sufficient staff to deliver the high quality services on which patients rely following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union and we have been monitoring leaver and joiner rates of EU staff on a regular basis since the 2016 referendum.

My Rt. hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has recently announced a 25% increase in training places for doctors, which will ensure the West Midlands can become less reliant on overseas doctors over time.

On 8 December the UK and EU Commission reached an agreement which delivered on the Prime Minister’s number one priority, to safeguard the rights of people who have built their lives in the UK and EU, following the UK’s exit from the EU.

The latest nationality statistics show at March 2018 4,558 more EU nationals excluding the UK (EU27) employed in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups than in June 2016.

The agreement will guarantee the rights of the 158,000 EU nationals working in our health and care system. It means that EU citizens living lawfully in the UK and UK nationals living lawfully in the EU by 29 March 2019 will be able to stay and enjoy broadly the same rights and benefits as they do now.