UK leaving the EU Walk and Chat Health Care Awareness

UK leaving the EU Walk and Chat Health Care Awareness

Direct effects on the HealthCare Sector

Fact of the day:2016/17 is already set to be a very challenging year for the NHS, with service leaders facing huge financial pressures and performance against key targets deteriorating. In the long term, the most important influence on NHS funding will be the performance of the economy. Before the referendum, HM Treasury stated that a vote to leave the EU would result in ‘an immediate and profound economic shock creating instability and uncertainty’ and that in the longer term the UK ‘would be permanently poorer’ (HM Treasury 2016a, 2016b).

Direct effects:

• The EU’s policy of freedom of movement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications within the EU means that many health and social care professionals currently working in the UK have come from other EU countries.

• This includes 55,000 of the NHS’s 1.3 million work force and 80,000 of the 1.3 million workers in the adult social care sector . This has left a gap of 135,000 healthcare professionals in the UK It is widely acknowledged that the NHS is currently struggling to recruit and retain permanent staff.
• We have argued that additional funding is needed for social care, which has already suffered cuts resulting in around 400,000 fewer people receiving publicly funded social care. If additional funding is not forthcoming, or if promised spending increases do not materialise, the government must be honest with the public about how access to care and standards of care will be affected.
• Similar problems exist in the social care sector, which has an estimated vacancy rate of 5.4 percent, rising to 7.7 per cent in domiciliary care services. High turnover is also an issue, with an overall turnover rate of 25.4 percent (equating to around 300,000 workers leaving their role each year) (Skills for Care 2015).

With the referendum result now clear, there are many issues at stake that will require the government’s urgent attention. While the immediate focus will be on negotiating favourable terms for trading and working with the EU after Brexit, the impact on health and social care should not be forgotten. If an economic shock materialises, the implications for patients and service users could be profoundly devastating.