They called on ministers to boost salaries to help encourage more nurses to remain with the NHS. Janet Davies, Chief Executive & General Secretary of the RCN said: “The trends indicated in this report add up to a perfect storm of risks to the future supply of nursing staff. "Many of these risks could have been avoided, and now immediate action is required.” Jeremy Hunt has insisted that EU workers are a crucial part of the workforce, while Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, has urged the Government to protect the rights of EU workers working in healthcare. A Department of Health spokesman said: “As the Secretary of State has repeatedly made clear, overseas workers form a crucial part of our dedicated nursing workforce. “We want to see the outstanding work of nurses who are already trained overseas continue, but at the same time we are already delivering our plan to train more home-grown nurses. “There are over 10,700 additional nurses on our wards since May 2010 and 50,000 in training, and our changes to student nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals funding will also create thousands more training places by the end of this parliament. “We will continue to fund public sector pay awards, including for NHS staff, at an average of 1 per cent next year”.
Four in 10 new nurses come from overseas, according to a report from RCN ), warning that the Royal College of Nursing (RCN (MHS) is on "the brink of a staffing crisis". Janet Davies , Chief Executive of the RCN , said the trend was "a perfect storm of risks to the future supply of nursing staff." The report also highlighted that 10 the nurses working the next decade are older than 44, and are expected to retire in today . Davies urged the government to boost salaries and offer more incentives for nurses to remain in the sector.