Thousands of foreign nurses a year leave UK to work abroad. A record 12,400 UK-registered nurses, 70% from non-EU countries, left the NHS for better-paying jobs abroad in 2021-2022. The Health Foundation found most were heading to the US, New Zealand or Australia, earning almost double compared with the UK. Experts warned the already-strained NHS, with around 40,000 nursing vacancies, was losing out in global recruitment. The Royal College of Nursing blamed the exodus on erosion of nursing pay in the UK since 2010.
