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RCN Foundation report exposes financial struggles among Internationally Educated Nurses and Midwives

In 2025, nearly a quarter of NMC registrants were Internationally Educated Nurses and Midwives (IEN/Ms) but despite their numbers, they are arguably one of the most vulnerable groups within our healthcare landscape, often experiencing unprecedented levels of hardship. 

From Arrival to Survival: Exploring the Hardship Struggles of Internationally Educated Nurses and Midwives

As IEN/Ms work on Health and Care Workers’ visas, they are subject to strict immigration restrictions such as having no recourse to public funds (NRPF), meaning that whilst they pay tax and national insurance, they have no access to welfare benefits.

Between 2022-2025, the RCN Foundation has seen a 475% increase in hardship grants awarded to individuals with NRPF. Their stories of hardship, caused by circumstances beyond their control – and often heightened by additional pressures such as discrimination, bullying and social isolation – highlights the inequity that exists for them. 

In 2025, 84 individuals with NRPF approached the Benevolent Service for support and completed the bespoke Affordability Tool. The tool identified that each of these individuals could potentially be in hardship, with all of them progressing to the grant application stage. Additionally, 55% of grant recipients who had NRPF in 2025 were assessed as experiencing hardship whilst employed, cementing that this group are experiencing in-work poverty. 

The RCN Foundation report aims to quantify this issue and is underpinned by statistics and data from the Benevolent Service and the lived experiences of IEN/Ms. 

The full report is available to read here. 

Implications 

This is an impending issue affecting 24% of the nursing and midwifery workforce and has only been exasperated by government initiatives to drive international recruitment yet, seeks to offer little support for IEN/Ms once they are working in the UK.

An RCN survey undertaken in 2025 reported that 22% of respondents who had a public funds restriction were struggling to afford food and other basic needs. In the survey, a further 40% reported immigration rules as a reason to leave the UK to practice elsewhere in the world.

Deepa Korea MBE, Director of the RCN Foundation said: “There is no question that Internationally Educated Nurses and Midwives are, and have always been, integral to the delivery of the UK’s health and care services. They are a vital part of the workforce, yet the system under which they are able to work in the UK inherently disadvantages them. This policy creates unnecessary hardship and risks driving skilled professionals away from the UK – a loss our health and care system simply cannot afford.

The single biggest difference that the government could make to improving this situation is to remove the no recourse to public funds condition, sending a clear message that Internationally Educated Nurses and Midwives are valued and welcome, and that they make an essential contribution to the UK’s health and care services.”