Nursing in the NHS: Spanish Nurses Recruitment

Recruiting new staff is a perennial priority for health services, and generations of overseas nurses have played a major role in Britain's NHS story. An intriguing nugget from the annals of nursing recruitment, this early 21st century piece was used to encourage nurses in Spain to consider bringing their skills to the UK. A relatively late COI production for the Department of Health, it has none of the visual verve we associate with its best work: it's a bare-bones talking-heads information video. What it does have is all the fascination of a moving image record of its moment in time, with added contemporary resonance when watched years later. In this case post-Brexit as the departure of many EU nurses brings staff shortage issues again to the fore.

The video is fronted by Sarah Mullally, then Britain’s most senior nurse who subsequently had a major career change herself, joining the ranks of Anglican clergy, eventually becoming Bishop of London in 2018. This government film is a public record, preserved and presented by the BFI National Archive on behalf of The National Archives, home to more than 1,000 years of British history.