The number of overseas nurses and midwives coming to the UK is collapsing, figures reveal, with rising racism and changes to immigration rules blamed for the fall.

Between April and September, 6,321 nurses and midwives from abroad joined the register of those licensed to practice in the UK, compared with 12,534 who did so in the same period in 2024.

At the same time, more international staff are leaving Britain, according to workforce data published by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

Health organisations said the trends would make it harder for the already understaffed NHS to provide the care expected of it and that patients would face even longer waiting times for treatment.

Suzie Bailey, an NHS workforce expert at the King’s Fund thinktank, said: “The dramatic fall in international nurse and midwife recruitment and retention should be sounding alarm bells for politicians, health and care leaders and people who rely on health and care services.”

The shifts identified by the NMC mirror those among overseas-trained doctors. They are leaving the UK in record numbers and a surge over recent years in overseas-trained doctors joining the NHS has plateaued, according to a report last month by the General Medical Council.

NHS staff groups said the rising tide of hostility towards migrants and hardline government changes to immigration rules were behind the apparent shunning of the UK as a destination. Labour has doubled from five years to 10 the time overseas workers have to wait before they are allowed to apply for indefinite leave to remain or claim any benefits, which critics say is pandering to Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party.

Louie Horne, the Unison union’s national nursing officer, said: “For decades, nurses and midwives from around the world have brought invaluable skills to the NHS. It would be a disaster to lose that contribution to vital services. This exposes the damage being inflicted by the government’s unfair and ill-conceived immigration changes. An urgent rethink to these policies is needed.”

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said last month that NHS staff were bearing the brunt of what he called a return to “ugly” 1970s and 1980s-style racism in Britain.

Overseas staff could also be choosing to go to other countries because of higher salaries or as a result of the NHS’s drive to recruit more home-trained staff, the NMC said. Paul Rees, the regulator’s chief executive and registrar, said: “The high-growth era of international recruitment appears to be ending.”

Between April and September, 58% fewer nurses and midwives from India – which supplies the most foreign nurses in the NHS – joined the NMC register.

Over the same period, the number of nurses arriving in the UK from the Philippines fell by 68%, from Nigeria by 28% and from Ghana by 9%.

Despite these trends, the total number of nurses, midwives and nursing associates on the register has grown to 860,801, the highest number ever. A record 96,593 (12%) are men.