New research has highlighted the ‘major role’ that overseas recruitment will have to play in order to meet ‘bold’ targets around boosting the nursing workforce.

Commitments have been made in England to expand the NHS workforce by 50,000 nurses through improved recruitment and retention by 2025 and reduce the nurse vacancy rate to five per cent by 2028.

Research commissioned by NHS England acknowledges that recruiting from overseas carries ‘considerable upfront costs’, which were estimated to be around £10,000 to £12,000 per nurse. However, it argues that these ‘need to be considered in the context of national funding to support such activities, and the longer-term or broader costs of alternative routes to increase nurse numbers”’

Additionally, the research suggests that the bold ambitions to increase numbers and reduce vacancy rates would take longer and be significantly more expensive to the public purse. It is believed that the government typically spends at least £26,000 on a single nurse training post and not all trainees will necessarily graduate or join the NHS.

Researchers claim that the upfront cost of recruiting an international nurse would be cancelled out within six months to two-and-a-half years from the savings made from not using agency or bank staff to cover that vacancy.

Apprenticeship nurse degrees were also deemed ‘potentially not a plausible solution to addressing the nursing shortfall’, with the researchers noting how the cost to a trust of a nurse apprenticeship was around £140,000 ‘over and above the levy’ which is provided to employers to cover the training costs of apprentices.