UK: nurses and midwives from the EU/EEA joining and leaving the register 2014-2023

Since the UK made the decision to leave the European Union, the number of new nurses and midwives from the European Economic Area (EEA) has significantly decreased. In the year 2022/23, the number of new registrants from the EEA was 651, while almost 9.4 thousand joined from the EEA in 2015/16, before the UK’s referendum on EU membership.  

Brexit impact?

It is true for most of those who are leaving the nursing register from the EU and EEA that Brexit has had an impact on their decision to do so. In a survey of leavers in 2018, 66 percent cited that they are leaving or have left the UK, with 51 percent saying that Brexit has encouraged them to consider working outside of the UK.

General trend in nurses in the UK

In 2018 there were approximately 670 thousand nurses in the UK, down from 675 thousand in 2016. The number of nurses in te UK has generally increased since 2010. Conversely, from the trend of nurses from the EEA, the number of nurses joining from outside the EEA has increased significantly since 2016, while the number leaving has slightly decreased.