DERRY JOURNAL Editorial: Labour's tough immigration stance will create health care work headache again

​The move had far-reaching consequences for the NHS locally which was historically reliant on international doctors.

A 2011 audit report found the Western Trust hiked its percentage of locum cover from 11% in 2007-8 to 17% in 2010-11 as it became more reliant on temporary staff. The immigration laws were cited as a significant factor.

Seventeen years on another UK Labour premier talking tough on immigration. Brown was tilting at Tory windmills. Starmer has been spooked by Reform UK following its insurgency in the British local government elections.

Starmer’s Restoring Control over the Immigration System White Paper proposes new immigration measures to make it harder for people from overseas to acquire visas.

This time the care system will bear the brunt. Reliant on overseas care workers – like the Western Trust was on foreign doctors 20 years ago – the sector is warning of dire consequences.

Starmer wants to ‘wean our national economy off its reliance on cheap labour from overseas’ because the existing immigration system ‘ignores the millions of people who want the opportunity to train and contribute’. Perhaps he will find a way to fill the gaping hole in our health and social care workforce he is digging. Perhaps another audit on the costs of another self-inflicted labour shortage is on the way.