Andrew Gwynne MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, responding to reports on the effect of immigration rules on NHS staffing, said:

“People coming from other countries to work in the NHS make a huge contribution and our health service would not cope without them.

“But this is a mess entirely of David Cameron’s own making. His short-sighted cuts to nurse training left NHS hospitals with no option but to recruit from overseas or hire expensive agency nurses.

“As ever with this government, it is patients who will pay the price for David Cameron’s mismanagement of the NHS.”