The health and social work sector employs one in seven of all immigrants in the UK, and was the biggest employer of migrants between 2002 and 2008; many originated in less developed countries with much poorer and under resourced health care systems.
The rapid expansion of the NHS as a result of the Wanless Report caused a peak in overseas recruitment of doctors and nurses in 2002 -3. Numbers are now falling but the UK still has a much higher proportion of foreign trained doctors than other comparable European countries, except for Ireland.
See full Briefing Paper No 5.9