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EU REFERENDUM RESEARCH: NHS nurses have faced increased discrimination since the Brexit vote, according to a new report

OVERSEAS NURSES working in the NHS have experienced more discrimination and racism since the 2016 Brexit vote, according to a new report.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham found that nursing staff were more likely to consider leaving the NHS as a result of the treatment they had faced.

One Greek nurse who works in a hospital in the south-west of England told researchers that she had been subjected to racism by the husband of a patient.

“When I was giving his wife her medication he told me to go back to the country I came from. I said to him: 'I can’t go because I have to take care of patients in the NHS'. He calmed down. The hospital has written to us to say if anything happens we must report it. We feel protected in theory but there is still an attitude. You can still feel something wrong in the air,” she said.

In addition to the racist attitudes exhibited from patients and their families, non-British nurses also cited limited career opportunities and bias from senior staff and management in relation to promoting them among the obstacles they faced.

The also listed delays in recognising their overseas qualifications and experience, as well as inconsistencies between NHS trusts with regards to the length of contracts and benefits offered to overseas nurses as factors in deciding against staying in the UK.

Georgia Spiliopoulus, who conducted the report alongside professor Stephen Timmons, interviewing 11 nurses, said: “Pastoral care and support for career development are important. If these measures are not implemented we will see even fewer nurses in our hospitals. NHS Trusts need to do more to tackle these issues by working more closely and sharing best practice."

Among their recommendations, the authors of the report have called on the NHS to continue to “protect staff from discrimination not only from their co-workers and the public but from management” and to improve consistencies between trusts in relation to offering visas that last for longer than two years.