Under Labour, the NHS must treat overseas nurses as professionals – not numbers’

The NHS could not function without nurses recruited from overseas. Yet if Labour is serious about building a fairer NHS and a fairer Britain, it must ask a harder question: what happens to internationally recruited nurses once they arrive?

For Black African nurses, recruitment is only the beginning.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan rightly recognises the continuing importance of international recruitment while seeking to strengthen domestic training and retention. But retention cannot simply mean keeping people in post. It must mean creating workplaces where nurses are valued, respected, supported and able to progress.

My recent scoping review of 22 studies examining the experiences of Black African nurses found recurring evidence of systemic racism; the impact of punitive visa regimes; employer–employee power imbalances; workplace exclusion; professional devaluation; barriers to career progression; and a persistent gap between equality policy and everyday experience.

This is not simply an equality issue. It is a workforce issue.

READ MORE: ‘Nurses are finally getting the recognition they deserve’

If the NHS depends on internationally recruited nurses to sustain its workforce, it cannot afford to recruit Black African nurses and then leave them to navigate structural barriers that undermine their wellbeing, progression and sense of belonging. Fair treatment, career progression and meaningful inclusion must be integral to workforce planning, not afterthoughts.

NHS England’s Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) exists because racial inequalities in recruitment, progression and workplace experience remain entrenched. Its data is stark: in 80% of NHS trusts, white applicants were significantly more likely than Black and minority ethnic applicants to be appointed following shortlisting. Just 48.8% of Black and minority ethnic staff, compared with 59.4% of white staff, felt their organisation provided equal opportunities for career progression or promotion.

These figures expose a fundamental truth: a diverse workforce is not necessarily an equal workforce.

Black African nurses should not be valued simply because they help fill vacancies. They bring professional expertise, international experience, cultural knowledge and perspectives that can enrich patient care and the NHS itself. Yet recruitment without recognition, inclusion and progression risks creating a two-tier workforce: nurses who are welcomed because they are needed, but whose expertise and leadership potential remain undervalued.

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Labour has an opportunity to change this.

Building a sustainable NHS workforce must mean investing in the nurses already here. That requires stronger accountability for racial inequalities, meaningful access to professional development and leadership opportunities, effective mentorship and sponsorship, and measurable action when organisations fail to deliver equality.

It also requires listening to nurses themselves.

Too often, international recruitment is discussed primarily through numbers: how many nurses are needed, how many vacancies exist and how many can be recruited from overseas. These questions matter. But they tell only half the story.

The other half is whether those nurses can build fair, secure and sustainable careers once they arrive.

If Labour wants an NHS that reflects its commitment to fairness, dignity and opportunity, it must move beyond seeing international nurses primarily as a solution to workforce shortages. They are not numbers. They are professionals, colleagues, leaders and people whose contribution deserves recognition.

Black African nurses have much to teach us about what a genuinely fair NHS requires.

The test of Labour’s workforce strategy should therefore not simply be whether Britain can recruit nurses from around the world. It should be whether we can make them want to stay – and give them a fair chance to thrive, lead and contribute to high-quality patient care.

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