Health Professions: Migrant Workers
(asked on 17th November 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of (i) nurses (ii) doctors (iii) midwives entering the NHS were (a) non-UK citizens (b) non-UK graduates in each of the last five years.
The Department does not hold data on the number and proportion non-United Kingdom citizens entering the National Health Service. NHS England publishes monthly Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics for England which includes data on the self-reported nationality of NHS staff, which may not be the same as citizenship. Not all non-UK nationals will have been recruited from abroad, as some will already be resident in the UK before they join the NHS. This information is available at the following link, within the folder “Preliminary - NHS HCHS Workforce Statistics, Turnover – CSV data files”:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics
The Department does not hold data on the number and proportion non-UK graduate doctors, nurses and midwives entering the NHS. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) publishes data on non-UK graduate first-time joiners to their professional register across the UK. The General Medical Council (GMC) similarly publishes data on non-UK graduates taking up, or returning to, a license to practice medicine in the UK. It is possible to apply to join the UK Registers without moving to the UK.
The most recent published NMC data is available at the following link:
https://www.nmc.org.uk/about-us/reports-and-accounts/registration-statistics/
The most recent published GMC data can be found under the “Reference tables and data annex” section of the “The state of medical education and practice in the UK: workforce report 2025”, within the file titled “The register of medical practitioners”, available at the following link: