New Tory immigration laws will cause most damage to NHS patients and staff

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Controversial new immigration laws could create massive holes in Scotland’s health and social care workforce.The UK Government announced prohibitive immigration rules on Monday which means no-one will be allowed to come into the country unless they earn £38,700 a year - around £4,000 a year more than the average UK salary.And while this figure does not apply to health and social care workers, they will be banned from bringing in their wives, husbands and families if they do not make the £38,700 threshold.

The average nurse salary in Scotland is £32,591 per year - well below the new minimum figure - and the pay for care workers is even less.Did you know you can keep up to date with the latest news by signing up to our daily newsletter?We send a morning and lunchtime newsletter covering the latest headlines every day.We also send coronavirus updates at 5pm on weekdays, and a round up of the week's must-read stories on Sunday afternoons.Signing up is simple, easy and free.You can pop your email address into the sign up box above, hit Subscribe and we'll do the rest.Alternatively, you can sign up and check out the rest of our newsletters here.New figures out yesterday showed there are currently 5,400 nursing and midwifery vacancies in Scotland.

Royal College of Nursing Chief Nurse, Professor Nicola Ranger, said: “Ministers appear comfortable with tearing apart families to score political points.

This cruel sanction will deter care workers from coming to the UK, adding to dire workforce shortages in social care and ultimately piling even more pressure on an overburdened NHS.“The Home Secretary admitted in his own announcement in the Commons that health workers with families will be put off joining our short-staffed health and