UNIONS have warned that Britain’s exit from the EU could place an intolerable strain on the NHS as it hits the recruitment of doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff.

Matt Dykes, senior policy officer at the Trades Union Congress, said: “Leaving the EU will create a short term staffing crisis in the NHS.

“Just under 50,000 citizens from the European Economic Area currently work in the NHS, including over 9,000 doctors and 18,000 nurses. We will end up with a staffing crisis that hurts our health service.”

John Skewes, director of policy at the Royal College of Midwives, has also said he fears leaving the EU could affect nursing standards and even put public safety at risk.

Swindon’s Great Western Hospital has, for a number of years, relied on overseas recruitment to fill a UK-wide shortage of qualified nurses.

Brexit and its associated uncertainties could now place barriers between the trust and their most fertile staffing pool, causing an additional strain on patient care.

Speaking at a meeting of the council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee last week, GWH strategy director Kevin McNamara outlined the importance of overseas nurse recruitment to the trust.

“One of our big concerns is not having enough qualified staff because of a national shortage of nursing staff in particular,” said Mr McNamara.

“Over the past few years we’ve gone abroad to Europe to recruit and this year for the first time in a number of years we have gone outside the EU to India to recruit.

“Although we’ve been making good progress with recruiting it’s quite hard to keep pace with the level of demand.”

The latest GWH recruitment drive saw 157 job offers made to nurses in India as well as an additional 20 to nurses in Spain and Portugal.

In January 2014 some 75 nurses from Spain, Portugal and Ireland joined the Trust to fill staffing gaps in midwifery and other departments – a further 27 nurses from the EU were recruited later that year.

Last year the trust again returned to the continent to bring over more much-needed staff.

Already, in the wake of last week’s referendum result, the Nursing and Midwifery Council has relaxed its rules on language testing for non-EU nurses to help bridge the anticipated recruitment gap.

However, moving to a wholly non-EU recruitment strategy poses significant challenges for GWH and other trusts.

For example, the cost of recruiting an EU nurse is £3,575 whereas the non-EU cost is £6,000.

Additionally, saturating a small number of countries, particularly those in the developing world, with recruitment agencies could not only exhaust the supply but also adversely impact on their own healthcare provision.

Coun Bob Wright (Lab – Central), has described that as “a displacement of our own country’s internal problems onto other countries.”

A spokesman for the GWH Foundation Trust said: “While discussions continue nationally, we will continue to do all we can to ensure we have enough people with the skills, experience and values we need, to provide patients with the best possible outcomes and compassionate care.”