'Prime knowledge' about the effects of Brexit

I have confessed to using the phrase ' it is more complicated than that'  while rebuking smug Remainers for saying it. However, it is SO apt for a piece in the Grudiana today in the 'Society' section.

We start with a shouty headline:

Brexit fears trigger exodus of crucial EU health and social care workforce 

But the article itself is far more 'nuanced' as liberals say. I do hope readers got past the headline -- it might be too tough for some readers. The scare is -- 'according to unions, NHS and social care providers '

 'The warning comes a year after the UK voted to leave the EU – and as the number of non-British EU nationals in the health and social care workforce has grown exponentially in the past eight years. In 2016, 209,000 people working in the sector in the UK were EU nationals, up from 121,000 in 2009 – a rise of 72% – according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).' 

So --hang on, there has been an increase in EU nationals in health and social care as well? Is it that figure that has declined after Brexit was announced?  Seemingly so:

More recent ONS figures show that the number of non-British EU nationals who said they worked in the UK public sector fell by 27,000 between January and March 2017.

So -- up by 88 thousand since 2009, and down 27 thousand. Still 61 thousand to go until we are at 2009 figures then (I'm not saying we SHOULD be at 2009 figures of course)

Despite the confident headline, these data provide '[only]  tentative signs that when it comes to public sector workers, the UK has lost some of its appeal as a place to live and work.' and there are further complications as we shall see. Luckily, ' anecdotal evidence suggests that the decline in immigration from public sector workers from the other 27 EU countries is due to uncertainty about the future, combined with a fall in the value of the pound since last June' [do check the link -- 7 people are quoted -- maybe 'quoted' in the ways journalists do].

Complications arise again with this:

the number of EU nationals working in the UK’s social care system soared by more than 40%, in response to a parliamentary question earlier this year. [the parliamentary question caused this?]  Despite this, according to the Royal College of Nurses, England alone has a shortage of 40,000 nurses and 3,500 midwives.

The CEO of a group lobbying for EU citizens' rights adds another complication: 'He says that the number of junior doctors applying to come from Europe appears to be unaffected, but recruitment of EU nurses, on which the NHS relies, is “drying up”'  And: 

“Some of that is because employers don’t feel able to go and recruit, because they can’t answer the questions about leave to remain; some of it is that there aren’t as many people wanting to come because of Brexit [and] because of the value of sterling; and some of it is people not wanting to come because the economies in their own countries are picking up,” he says.

How big are the 'somes' [sorry] I wonder. Here is a clue :

far more nurses and midwives are leaving the profession in the UK than joining, according to new figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The numbers of EU registrants leaving has also increased, from 1,173 in 2012/2013 to 3,081 in 2016/2017, and Brexit was one of the top three reasons this latter category cited for leaving, according to a survey by the council.

So -- lots of nurses and midwives are leaving (can't think why -- low pay and crap conditions?) and some of them are EU registrants. They gave Brexit as one reason as we saw. Other reasons might include  'Tough new language tests' according to an earlier Graun story. And:

Anne-Marie Rafferty, professor of nursing policy at the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, King’s College London [says]. “Markets, including Labour markets, are very sensitive to signals from government,” [she's an economist as well as a prof of nursing policy] ... “and I suspect that part of that drop [NB] is also to do with the uncertainties which surround the rights to remain – and under what conditions these rights would be granted for EU nurses.”

In the background,  'The dependence on EU recruitment [arises] because of a lack of homegrown nurses [and this] could result in real difficulties [unless we increase the numbers of homegrown nurses, of course] :

Complications continue with:

data from NHS Digital, which collates data across the health service, shows that despite this massive drop in official registrations with the nursing regulator and the increase in EU nurses leaving, there are actually more EU staff working in the NHS. Nursing numbers, it says, rose from 21,030 to 22,232 between March 2016 and March 2017 – as well as midwives, from 1,331 to 1,384 over the same period. While 9,419 EU workers left the NHS since March 2016, 13,480 have joined....A record number of EU nationals are also working in hospital and community health services (61,934), up from 57,604 12 months ago, according to NHS Digital figures for March 2017.

We can explain this, but only by adding yet another factor:

The apparent contradiction could be explained by the fact that while more EU nationals are leaving nursing and fewer people are registering, those who remain are increasingly switching from agency work to direct employment with NHS organisations. In other words, hospitals are employing more EU staff as they attempt to cut their agency and locum staff bill.

Back to some simple statements to end:

'Either way, public sector unions are increasingly alarmed at the potential for more EU staff to leave' says the Head of the TUC, who then goes on to add: '“Regardless of their passport, no one should be working for a rubbish wage – and nobody should be at the end of the phone waiting to see if they get a call to say whether they’re going to earn a wage that day.”

For anyone worried about these complications, there is a panel of anecdotal evidence and Remoaning provided by one doctor:  '“There is a bit of a nasty undertone,” says Kalwij. “I just think Brexit is a massive mistake.”'

Thank goodness we have the shouty headline, a couple of the statistics without qualification (in my print edition) and this nice doctor to help us decide what to think after all these nasty complications. The whole structure could well illustrate what someone once called a strategy of deploying  'prime knowledge' (he was referring to televangelism -- I have the reference if you ask). You say how complex the world is, how there is no certainty and everything is undecidable -- then you say despite that you just KNOW what is the case. We have to rely on what we just 'know' because the evidence is inconclusive. All the nice people 'know' what is the case, so join us and 'know'.