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 potential (a) health and (b) economic impact of trained healthcare workers leaving their home country to work in the UK on nations in (i) Eastern Europe and (ii) the Global South.

We hugely value our health and social care workers from overseas who work tirelessly to provide the best possible care and enhance our health and care workforce with their valuable skills, experience and expertise. Internationally educated staff remain an important part of the workforce, and our Code of Practice for International Recruitment ensures stringent ethical standards when recruiting health and social care staff from overseas. This includes prohibiting active recruitment from red list countries to the National Health Service, social care, or independent sectors under our Code of Practice.

The Government also remains committed to growing homegrown talent and giving opportunities to more people across the country to join the NHS. Following publication of our 10-Year Health Plan on 3 July 2025, we will produce a refreshed workforce plan, setting out how we will train and provide the staff that the NHS needs to care for patients across our communities and treat them on time again. As set out in our 10-Year Health Plan, we will work across Government to prioritise medical graduates from the United Kingdom for foundation training, and to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors who have worked in the NHS for a significant period for specialty training. The plan also outlines that we will now make it a requirement for newly qualified dentists to practice in the NHS for a minimum period. We intend this minimum period to be at least three years.

The Immigration White Paper also set out reforms to legal migration, so that we can restore order, control and fairness to the system, bring down net migration and promote economic growth. The changes set out include a complete overhaul of the relationship between the immigration system, training and the labour market to support sustainable growth as well as a sustainable immigration system.