ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the causes and contours of health professional migration through the lens of one country's experience, the United Kingdom, focusing on the largest occupational group within health care, nurses, but also taking account of doctors' migration. Migrant health professionals have made an important contribution to the UK National Health Service (NHS) by boosting the size and diversity of the workforce, contributing to improvements in service delivery and by curtailing UK government expenditure on training. Piore suggested that migration stems from the structural demand for migrant labour within advanced industrial economies and it is only when employer demand stimulates migration that such flows occur. The chapter indicates that even in a context of increased global mobility and the free movement of labour within the European Union, governments retains scope to influence migration flows by adjusting immigration rules, altering licensing requirements and by signalling to employers.
