Huge jump in nurses quitting to seek jobs in Australia, New Zealand and US driven by cost of living crisis and prospects of better pay and working conditions
The number of nurses in England planning to leave the country to work abroad has rocketed fivefold in five years, figures suggest.
Data obtained by the RCN show the number of nurses applying for and receiving a certificate of current professional status (CCPS) increased by almost five times between 2018-19 and 2022-23, from 2,165 to 10,282.
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A CCPS is a letter validating registration and is issued by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Overseas employers will often ask to see the letter as proof of being on the register, with Australia, New Zealand and the US the most popular destinations for UK trained nurses.
Data from a freedom of information (FOI) request shows that 30,901 CCPS letters were sent out in the past five and a half years, with 62.2% of them being issued in the past 18 months. In just the six months from April to September last year 8,950 such letters were sent to registrants.
Little wonder nurses are opting to use their skills elsewhere, says RCN’s Pat Cullen
The RCN said the rise coincides with the UK’s cost of living crisis.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said: ‘Low pay and poor working conditions are driving chronic workforce shortages. With the prospect of better pay and working conditions abroad, it should be little wonder why nurses are opting to use their skills elsewhere.
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‘The reality is that those working in health and care services want to be rewarded fairly and to deliver the level of care they were trained to. The government’s submission to the NHS pay review body (RB) indicates that it hasn’t yet grasped the urgency of the workforce crisis in nursing.
‘Every day that the penny doesn’t drop is another day when more nurses choose to leave.’
| Certificates of current professional status issued by NMC | |
|---|---|
| Year | Number of certificates |
| 2018-19 | 2,165 |
| 2019-20 | 2,415 |
| 2020-21 | 2,680 |
| 2021-22 | 4,409 |
| 2022-23 | 10,282 |
| 2023-24* | 8,950 |
| Total | 30,901 |
| *Note: 2023-24 figures show only six months (April-September 2023), with full year’s figures anticipated to be higher |
NHS Long Term Workforce Plan commits to improving staff retention, says DHSC
The RCN’s submission to the RB said the government should pay nursing staff a significant recruitment and retention supplement amounting to thousands of pounds in addition to basic salary to tackle the ever worsening workforce crisis.
But the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) told the RB that a 2024-25 pay deal for nurses and other NHS staff needs to be ‘fair but affordable.’
A DHSC spokesperson said: ‘We have published the first ever Long Term Workforce Plan – backed by over £2.4 billion in government funding – to provide the biggest training expansion in NHS history and hundreds of thousands more staff over the next 15 years. The plan also commits to improving staff retention by ensuring that up to 130,000 fewer staff, including nurses, will leave the NHS over the next 15 years.’
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