THE number of EU nationals coming to work at Oxfordshire’s major hospitals has more than halved since the Brexit referendum.

New starters arriving from the European Union to work at the county’s acute hospitals have fallen from 809 in 2015/16 to 395 in 2017/18.

The decline in numbers has put even more pressure on Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) which is currently battling a recruitment and retention crisis as hospitals struggle to attract sufficient staff numbers.

According to the OUH figures, the total number of EU staff working at hospitals such as the John Radcliffe Hospital or Churchill Hospital has actually risen from 1,431 in 2015/16 to 1,579 in the last three years.

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However, the figures show that as of last year the number of EU staff leaving the trust (386) is now almost level with those joining (395).

The number of those leaving the trust grew from 230 in 2015/16 to 386 in 2017/18.

The drop-in new European staff has seen hospital chiefs ramp up recruitment in countries further afield such as India and the Philippines.

In October it was revealed that OUH has the highest proportion of EU nurses of any trust outside London, at 21 per cent, and speaking today new OUH medical director Meghana Pandit re-iterated the vital role that EU staff play at the trust.

Professor Pandit, who took up the role at the start of January said: “I know we support our European staff, they are extremely important to us in every profession throughout the organisation and we have agreed to support them in their settled status applications.”

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The trust, which as of March 2018 employed 12,658 staff, currently has a vacancy rate of 7.65 per cent with 905 equivalent full-time posts remaining unfilled.

The UK is set to withdraw from the EU on March 29.

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