Petition Given the current 2.62 million unemployed, foreign nurses on work permits should be made redundant first in NHS cuts

Foreign healthcare professionals (including nurses & doctors) on work permits should be made redundant first in any cost cutting exercise. NHS has around 1.3 million employees. It has been claimed by unions that around 22,000 jobs have been lost in the NHS in England within the last 18 months. Some jobs in the NHS were made redundant, others were cut by natural turnover (around 130,000 a year), post closures or job freezes. Frontline healthcare professionals & managers who appoint new healthcare professionals may sometimes (as during the last HMG) develop services that duplicate & over-manned healthcare services, sometimes by employing staff on work permits or agency staff (who themselves on also work permits to work for employment agencies). Sometimes NHS managers over-manned their services in order to keep their staffing budget for the following financial year. Using staff registered on the hospital as ‘bank staff’ will be much cheaper than employing agency staff.