Migrants, far from being a drain on the NHS, form a huge chunk of its underpaid workforce, and put less burden on it than the rest of the country, explains Tom Griffiths

Anti-migrant rhetoric is on the rise.

Saturday 13 September saw the biggest far-right demonstration in British history. Many who attended believe migrants are the root of Britain’s problems. Reform, leading in the polls, is calling for an end to Indefinite Leave to Remain. At the UN, Donald Trump told European leaders to end ‘open borders policies’ or risk ‘going to hell’. Racist scapegoating of society’s ills is nothing new, but it’s reaching a fever pitch.

The reason this has any traction at all is because there’s a lot to be angry about. A cost-of-living crisis, lack of jobs, crumbling services and war and genocide abroad.

Once beloved, the UK’s National Health Service is now struggling, waiting lists are growing, appointments lacking, and thousands of avoidable deaths are occurring each year due to long waits for emergency care and low staffing levels.

The truth is that Labour, in part voted into office to stop the NHS’s decline, has failed to offer a solution to the crisis.

Instead they will axe around 100,000 NHS jobs despite an urgent need for more staff and over 100,000 vacancies. They also plan to continue cutting trust budgets and allowing more services to be bought by private companies. At the same time, Keir Starmer has doubled down on the anti-migrant rhetoric that threatens only to deepen the NHS crisis.

The truth is, the NHS would collapse completely if migration was halted or even significantly slowed. About one in five NHS staff in England is from abroad. When it comes to clinical roles (doctors, nurses etc), about one in three doctors and one in four nurses is either born or trained abroad, meaning migrants are essential to patient care and patient safety.

It is impossible to replace migrant NHS staff with UK-born and UK-trained health workers overnight and it would take investment on a scale that this government is refusing to do.

Even the idea that migrants are a burden on the NHS is simply not borne out by the facts. Only 0.3% of total NHS budgets go on providing care for non-UK residents. The NHS, in fact, is the clearest example we have of how our society is benefited and enriched by migrants.

The current spike in racist rhetoric is a smokescreen meant to divide and distract us from what’s really causing misery in society and undermining our NHS. The root cause is politicians and their friends in vast corporations who are privatising our public services. It’s not people in small boats, it’s the people at the top.