The Detrimental Effects of Brexit on NHS Funding and Staffing Levels

This essay investigates the potential negative impacts of Brexit on the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom. The essay argues that Brexit is likely to result in shortages of funding and staff, which could severely affect the quality of healthcare services provided. It examines various aspects of the issue, including the potential reduction in the number of nurses and doctors from the European Union, the concerns of healthcare professionals about the future of the NHS, and the potential disruption of the supply of medicines and medical products. The essay also references surveys and research papers to support its claims and outlines a plan to investigate the requirements of staff, their availability, the amount of funds, and the continuous availability of healthcare products. The conclusion emphasizes that Brexit poses a significant threat to the NHS's ability to deliver quality care, and that it will negatively affect the staffing and funding of the NHS.

Instead of helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a shortage of Funding and Staff 1
Instead of Helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a Shortage of Funding and Staff
Name of the Student
Name of the University

Instead of helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a shortage of Funding and Staff 2
NHS or National Health Services in the United Kingdom is the collection of four
independent and separate public providers of healthcare. It comprises of NHS in Scotland, in
Northern Ireland Health & Social Care, NHS in England, and NHS Wales. The establishment of
NHS occurred in 1948. According to this healthcare service, the residents of the United Kingdom
are not charged for any services that fall under healthcare excluding optical and dental. For many
years, the United Kingdom has a combative relationship with the European Union. Due to which,
the United Kingdom government decided to exit the European Union. This is known as the
British exit or Brexit (McBride, 2019).
Source: https://infacts.org/11-key-facts-we-didnt-know-back-in-2016/ (Dixon, 2018)
The Brexit will have an adverse impact on the NHS and there is a long list of issues that
should be focussed. According to the referendum, the recruitment and maintenance of the
professionals of NHS will be greatly affected. It has been observed that there will a massive
reduction in the nurse staffing from the countries of the European Union (McHale, 2020).
According to a survey, around 64% of the doctors have voted that the National Health
Services would go down after the implication of Brexit. Only 7% of doctors or medical

Instead of helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a shortage of Funding and Staff 3
professionals think that Brexit will help in providing better services. As suggested by 57% of the
healthcare professionals, the comprehensive quality of care which NHS will be providing after
Brexit would get worse. Most of the respondents were about the shortage of funding and staff
with a longer time for waiting after Brexit. According to many of them, there will be a
requirement of nurses and doctors from other countries to retain their operation. Some of them
think that it will take a lot of time to train the nationals of the UK so that they can replace them
(Courea, 2018).
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47616491 (Triggle, 2019)

Instead of helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a shortage of Funding and Staff 4
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47616491 (Triggle, 2019)
According to some research papers, all forms of Brexit will have an undesirable effect on
the leadership and health services of the United Kingdom as the supply of healthcare services
and products will no longer be available. This will affect the residents of the United Kingdom to
a great extent as they have to wait for a longer time for better healthcare services and products
(Fahy et al., 2019).
According to another survey, after Brexit, the residents of the United Kingdom will have
to pay more when travelling to any European countries. Additionally, the supply of medicines
and other medical products will get disturbed (Holmes, Baird and McKenna, 2019).

Instead of helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a shortage of Funding and Staff 5
According to some reports, it has been evidenced that the recruitment of NHS staff will
become more difficult after Brexit and the funding for NHS will be less likely to receive as
required, which will affect the overall quality of care given to the patients. The withdrawal of the
British from the European Union implies that the residents of the United Kingdom will have to
give up the health insurance card of Europe (Street, 2016).
All of these observations suggest that Brexit is not a great idea for the NHS and it will
impact negatively on staffing and funding of NHS.
Plan:
To complete this research, the investigation will be done according to the below table:
Sr. No. Investigation Reason for Investigation
1. Investigate the requirement of staff This investigation is needed
because of the increasing
demand for healthcare
services
2. Availability of the staff Due to the rising number of
patients more and more staff
will be needed, so their
availability needs to be
checked
3. Amount of Funds for proper health services Funding is the most critical
part of providing quality
healthcare. Therefore, it
requires to be balanced
4. Availability of continuous healthcare products To treat patients with the best
healthcare products, it is
important that there will be a
continuous supply of
healthcare products

Instead of helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a shortage of Funding and Staff 6
Draft:
NHS is the collective name for the health services provided in the United Kingdom,
which will get affected due to the exit of Britain from the European Union. The NHS will be
adversely impacted due to the movement of Brexit as there are various things like medical
products and healthcare professionals that are provided by the European countries. Thus, after
Brexit, the residents of the United Kingdom might not get the quality of care that they are getting
now. The funding and staffing of the NHS will get severely affected by this decision. There are
many surveys that prove these facts.

Instead of helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a shortage of Funding and Staff 7
References
Courea, E. (2018). Brexit: most doctors and nurses now think NHS will get worse. [online] the
Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/13/brexit-doctors-and-
nurses-nhs-will-get-worse [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].
Dixon, H. (2018). Brexit is Bad for our NHS. [image] Available at: https://infacts.org/11-key-
facts-we-didnt-know-back-in-2016/ [Accessed 25 Feb. 2020].
Fahy, N., Hervey, T., Greer, S., Jarman, H., Stuckler, D., Galsworthy, M. and McKee, M.
(2019). How will Brexit affect health services in the UK? An updated evaluation. The Lancet,
393(10174), pp.949-958.
Holmes, J., Baird, B. and McKenna, H. (2019). Brexit: the implications for health and social
care. [online] The King's Fund. Available at:
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/brexit-implications-health-social-care
[Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].
McBride, J. (2019). What Brexit Means. [online] Council on Foreign Relations. Available at:
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-brexit-means?
gclid=CjwKCAiA4Y7yBRB8EiwADV1hadS_dYvcSU0PCw3dX59VigdSrViHAgi5gRSzJ4aPy
kwTli60NWgi2BoCB9oQAvD_BwE [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].
McHale, J. (2020). The impact of Brexit on the NHS - University of Birmingham. [online]
Birmingham.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/perspective/impact-of-
brexit-on-the-nhs.aspx [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].

Instead of helping the NHS, Brexit is Likely to Result in a shortage of Funding and Staff 8
Street, A. (2016). Brexit is not good news for the NHS – here's why. [online] The Conversation.
Available at: http://theconversation.com/brexit-is-not-good-news-for-the-nhs-heres-why-61613
[Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].
Triggle, N. (2019). Will we have enough GPs? [image] Available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47616491 [Accessed 25 Feb. 2020].
Triggle, N. (2019). Will we have enough nurses? [image] Available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47616491 [Accessed 25 Feb. 2020].