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The number of European nurses arriving in Britain has fallen from about 9,000 to 900 a year since the Brexit referendum, it was revealed today.

London has the highest vacancy rate in the country and the ability to lure health professionals from the Continent is seen as a vital in plugging workforce gaps and responding to the growing demand for NHS care.

Concerns will increase over the impact of Brexit on the NHS after the latest UK statistics from the Nursing and Midwifery Council showed that the number of newly-registered nurses and midwives from the European Economic Area fell from 9,389 in 2015/16 to 968 in the year to March.

London’s 13.5 per cent nursing vacancy rate is the highest in the NHS and means that 8,912 posts are unfilled, including 6,247 in acute hospitals and 1,994 mental health nurses. The NHS has 40,000 nursing vacancies. Problems are worst in the capital’s mental health sector, where 16.2 per cent of posts — nearly one in six — are unfilled. Almost a third of non-UK EU staff work in the London NHS.

Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “Our NHS nurses provide incredible care in the toughest of circumstances. It’s an absolute disgrace that their work is being made much harder by chronic underfunding and under-staffing.”

About 10,000 European nurses have left the NMC register since the 2016 referendum. More than half said Brexit was a key reason for departing. The latest statistics show, however, that the recruitment of EEA nurses in 2018/19 was slightly better than in 2017/18, when there were only 805 joiners. In addition, the number of leavers has slowed from 3,962 in 2017/18 to 3,333 in the last financial year.

Overall, the capital’s nursing vacancy rate has reduced in the past two years from 14.4 per cent, meaning the number of vacant posts fell from 9,479 to 8,912. The overall size of the register, which gives the right to practise as a nurse in the private sector or NHS, has grown by 8,000 in the past year to 698,237, boosted by about 5,000 more UK-trained nurses, including 500 additional midwives, and about 3,000 from countries outside the EEA.

There are almost 6,000 more nurses on the register since the referendum, but not all choose to practise.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive at NHS Providers, said: “It is striking that the number of EU nurses and midwifery staff coming to work in the UK following the EU referendum remains so low... We will need to see a mix of short-term and longer-term solutions, including the expansion of international recruitment and greater investment in NHS education and training places.”