{"id":140883,"date":"2018-06-14T01:19:50","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T01:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/immigration-rules-to-be-relaxed-for-non-eu-doctors-and-nurses\/"},"modified":"2018-06-14T01:19:50","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T01:19:50","slug":"immigration-rules-to-be-relaxed-for-non-eu-doctors-and-nurses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/immigration-rules-to-be-relaxed-for-non-eu-doctors-and-nurses\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration rules to be relaxed for non-EU doctors and nurses"},"content":{"rendered":"
Media playback is unsupported on your device
Media captionSajid Javid discussing the net migration target earlier this month<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The government is to relax immigration rules to allow more non-EU skilled workers into the UK. <\/p>\n

On Friday, the Home Office is expected to confirm that foreign doctors and nurses will be excluded from the government's visa cap.<\/p>\n

The cap - introduced by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary - sets a limit for all non-EU skilled workers at 20,700 people a year.<\/p>\n

But NHS bosses say the rules are making it difficult to recruit enough staff.<\/p>\n

The proposed changes relate to so-called Tier 2 visas - which are used by skilled workers from outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, it was reported that 2,360 visa applications by doctors from outside the European Economic Area were refused in a five-month period, apparently because of the cap.<\/p>\n

And in April, NHS bosses warned that immigration rules were hampering their ability to find workers after visas for 100 Indian doctors were refused. <\/p>\n

In February, NHS England had 35,000 nurse vacancies and nearly 10,000 doctor posts unfilled.<\/p>\n

Media playback is unsupported on your device
Media caption'Shortage of doctors has led to treatment delays'<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to think tank Global Futures, 12.5% of NHS England's staff are from overseas. That number rises to 45% in certain specialities including paediatric cardiologists and neurosurgeons.<\/p>\n

The current annual cap on these visas has also led to over 1,000 IT specialists and engineers being denied visas.<\/p>\n

The proposed cap exclusion would only apply to doctors and nurses, but would free up thousands of visas for workers in other industries like IT and teaching.<\/p>\n

Current government policy aims to reduce net migration to below 100,000.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • 1,600 IT workers and engineers denied UK visas<\/li>\n
  • 10 charts explaining the UK's immigration system<\/li>\n
  • Relaxing visa rules for doctors and nurses<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Home secretary Sajid Javid hinted at the changes earlier this month, telling the BBC 's Andrew Marr that he "saw the problem" with the cap and would take a "fresh look" at it.<\/p>\n

    His latest move could indicate a new direction for immigration policy post-Brexit, the BBC's political correspondent Ben Wright said.<\/p>\n

    It could also encourage others to argue for the net migration target - which has never been met - to be abandoned, he said.<\/p>\n

    "Perhaps this is a sign that Sajid Javid is willing to take a bolder and more flexible approach to immigration, and deliver the kind of system that Britain will need after we leave the EU," said Sunder Katwala, director of the immigration think-tank British Future.<\/p>\n

    "It never made sense to turn away doctors and nurses that the NHS needs."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Media playback is unsupported on your deviceMedia captionSajid Javid discussing the net migration target earlier this month The government is to relax immigration rules to allow more non-EU skilled workers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}