The number of European nurses registering to work in Britain has fallen by more than 90 percent since last June's Brexit vote, the British Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) told AFP on Friday. A total of 101 nurses and midwives from EU nations registered in December, compared with 1,304 in July, the month after the referendum, according to the NMC.
The country's National Health Service (NHS) is currently in the spotlight over an apparent "winter crisis" and already has a staff shortage with 24,000 nursing vacancies across Britain. Official figures comparing the monthly averages for previous years show 204 nurses registering in 2016, down from 820 in 2015 and 707 in 2014.
"This is the first sign of a change following the EU referendum and it is our responsibility as the regulator to share these figures with the public," said Janet Davies, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
However, she stressed that it was not possible to link the fall in registrations with Brexit "definitively".
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