Responding to today’s announcement of a new Health and Care Visa and confirmation that overseas health and care staff will exempt from the Immigration Health Surcharge. Professor Michael Griffin OBE, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh said;
“We are delighted that the government will be implementing changes that RCSEd have been calling on for some time, including removing the Immigration Health Surcharge for doctors and other workers in the NHS.
“International medical graduates have long been invaluable contributors to the NHS without whom the service would not be what it is today, and it is important that this is fully recognised.
“It is encouraging to hear that the government plans to invest in the domestic workforce, as for too long we have been reliant as a country on workers trained elsewhere. A well-trained, full-strength domestic workforce would allow UK trained doctors as well as those trained abroad to move seamlessly between the NHS and different healthcare systems, encouraging a global knowledge exchange that would contribute to better systems both here and around the world.”