Firstly - All context is absent from the story. No mention is made of the latest official Parliament report on NHS staffing, particularly that only 5% of NHS staff are from other EU countries, and of those some 48% work in London and the South East. No context is given to the bald claim that 2,700 EU nurses leaving the NHS in 2016 is unusual. No mention is made of normal staff 'churn' - usually 10% a year. Of 21,000 EU NHS nurses, we should expect that 2,100 leave each year; that gives us 600 EU nurses a year over the norm that are quitting. That's 0.05% of all NHS staff. Worth a headline?
Secondly - Little or no fact checking seems to have been done, certainly not using the Parliamentary report on NHS staffing, which states that far from falling, the number of NHS staff from EU states has been rising - "Of staff who joined the NHS in 2015/16, 10.8% were from other EU countries. This has risen from 6.8% in 2012/13" - though still only 5% of the total.
Thirdly - The most risibly unevidenced claim, that floods of EU staff were leaving because of fear of Brexit, is nothing more than made-up agitprop that has no place in any newspaper. No survey, no voxpops, no reporter interviewing significant numbers. It's just a lie.
In fact, EU workers in all sectors including agriculture and horticulture have fallen since mid 2016. In all cases where evidence is available, this is primarily because of the weak pound; getting €1.15 for each NHS £1 is simply not as attractive as the old €1.35 rate. Particularly for staff in London and the South-east faced with high housing costs. But of course, not a single mention of this.
In the face of such blatant omission, distortion and misrepresentation, such outrageous Fake News, is it any wonder that this foul little rag is going broke?
11 comments:
It is obscene, the first resort of our overlords to *any* labour or skills shortage is to recruit from overseas, not only is that an indictment of our own education and training system ( mostly state run ) but it denudes other countries of their skilled labour, that they have prudently or otherwise, taken the trouble to produce.
We have added a good 50% to our social dysfunction by the importation of different ethnic and racial factions to the UK in the last one hundred years, with almost no benefit that couldn't have been addressed equally well with additional investment in education and training.
If Northern Ireland was a problem that lasted forty years until the British government capitulated to the IRA, look to India to see what is in store for us in the UK in future.
Not to mention the gymnastics necessary to accommodate incompatible cultures, including a profound ignorance of English.
IF the report was true, my response would be "good .... perhaps the Government will realise that we need to train British nurses and review the training processs" (do they really all need to have degrees and if so, perhaps the Government should fund them all).
One of the justifications the pro-immigration lobby used to regularly trot out, in order to silence those who were opposed to their locality being turned into a foreign country, was that many of these foreign workers were temporary; at some point they'd return home.
Now, when some of them a voluntarily doing that we're suppose to howl in anguish. The pro-immigration lobby are going to be sadly disappointed when it doesn't happen.
As for The Guardian, a paper that resorts to begging people to subsidise it when they pay an infrequent visit to its pages, is in the last stages of desperation. The worldview and opinions they peddle are irrelevant to most people - who live in the real world, not the left-wing fantasy the Guardian dreams of.
Sadly it has a lot more Scott trust money to burn through before it goes broke.
Pat
yep ... around 20 years worth at the present burn rate
That other cheek of the same arse - The BBC - play exactly the same games as the King's Cross GMG crew except they're running on money extracted in what is little more than a protection racket.
Defunding the BBC is do-able - let the Guardian simply fizzle slowly out of existence.
Gordon, You are right about the symbiosis of the Guardian and the BBC. They are both rotten to the core. I stopped watching BBC TV decades ago (before the internet got going), and now hardly ever listen to BBC radio either.
It is simply not possible for a broadcaster to be unbiased, despite the BBC's dogmatic delusions. The only fair option is to eliminate the TV Tax, and make the BBC pay-to-view. Then those that like the Guardian perspective can pay for it, without expecting the rest of us to subsidise them.
Labour and LibDems won't do this, and the Tories are too frightened. The only option is for sufficient numbers of us to give the BBC a miss, and not pay the TV Tax. That is the only way the PTB will take note.
When the media start referring to 'immigrant labour' more accurately as 'cheap labour' we may see the proper public response.
Budgie
Absolutely - subscription is the way and Netflix, Amazon and a host of smaller operators show that it isn't impossible to do. The political reach of the BBC has cowed most of the 650 MPs.
Starve the beast.
"The only option is for sufficient numbers of us to give the BBC a miss, and not pay the TV Tax. That is the only way the PTB will take note."
That's why during the last round of negotiations they tried to link the BBC tax with broadband internet fees. If too many people do what I do, and forego broadcast TV so as to not need a licence, they'll just change the rules to get you.
Democracy is a sham, as the Brexit debate shows in spades.
Anonymous said @ 08:31
'We have added a good 50% to our social dysfunction by the importation of different ethnic and racial factions to the UK in the last one hundred years, with almost no benefit that couldn't have been addressed equally well with additional investment in education and training.'
Yes we had a totally cohered society not that long ago - and it doesn't require a degree to understand why either. An old (1950's, 60's or even 70's) school photo perhaps; from an annual sports day (taken virtually anywhere in the British Isles) is a good place to start. You'll notice something about the pupils. One I have from the summer of 1968 has me with the rest of my year at a junior school in Dorset. Around 80 kids in total, from the same stock - social cohesion came with the wallpaper.
Ever wondered why there were once so many city and county regiments?
We have news blackouts and reporting retrictions now, to 'protect social cohesion'. The little English girls in Rotherham is one example. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. This won't end well, it never has. The politicians are going against human nature. Due to the hubris of this tiny elite we will all suffer, and greatly. The logical end to the hybridizing 'diversity' they so crave is sameness. It may be good for business (the globalist economic argument is front and centre) but it's the death of the discrete in human societies, ethnicity abolished.
Steve
I would also suspect that the average 10% churn in the NHS generally would be normally higher among EU workers as they have already by definition demonstrated itchy feet.
I would also suspect that NHS workers in the London area, where there is a higher proportion of EU workers were also generally more mobile than those in usually more settled provincial and rural areas.
Record number gone? Good. Glad to see the back of 'em. Now let's have some of our own kind, who understand us, wish us well, and will work to help us as we should be helped.
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