Looking at historic trends in the recruitment of international nurses reveals how realistic a “less than 10%” target might be. Here, we assess the level of scale-up from domestic nurse training that would be required to compensate for reducing the level of inflow of international nurses. Firstly, the number of international nurses has ebbed and flowed over the years, with three periods of high registration. This historically high level of reliance on international nurses was driven by the previous Conservative government target to increase the number of NHS nurses by 50,000 in England. This suggests that the “less than 10%” metric for a low level of reliance on international nurses will be very tough to achieve.

Source: The Times July 28, 2025 11:38 UTC