Is it that straightforward?
I've been employed in the good ol' NHS as a Community Psychiatric Nurse for the past twenty years. There are eight CPNs in my team, four Social Workers and four Support Workers. We have 800+ people on the books, all with a psychotic illness. 5% of those at any time - roughly 40 - are not British nationals. We have referrals for Syrians, Turks, Poles, Iraquis, Romanians on a regular basis. Try treating a Syrian paranoid schizophrenic when they have been displaced, lost their kids in a bomb raid, don't speak English, don't have rights to claim housing or benefits, in crisis and vulnerable. The resources that these people need are unbelievable, and often simply not there. The other 95% - equally in need of help - range from age 14 to dead. We are overwhelmed and have had to create a waiting list. Try explaining that to the parents of a teenager who is self-harming and bent on self-destruction because the voices are telling him/her to kill themselves (or someone else). Does any of this affect our attitude to what we do? You decide. As an NHS employee I have to adhere to a Code of Conduct and I'm not allowed to publicly voice a personal opinion.
In my wife's hospital (she's been a general nurse, now Deputy Sister, for thirty years) there are other pressures. On her twelve-bed ward she currently has four patients who are 'fit for discharge' but who cannot return home because the community support they will need is not available. The domino effect means that patients in need of beds can't get them; patients are queued up on trolleys in the Accident and Emergency dept waiting to be admitted.
This isn't new. The pressure on the NHS has been building for years. The NHS may have an admirable mission statement, but It's a fcked up system. There's just not enough money to be everything to everybody. The latest bollocks is that all aspiring nurses have to be educated to degree level, a three year course costing them each £9000 GBP a year, precluding many who would make bloody good nurses but don't have the money or academic acumen to qualify. So we now have a shortage of nurses. And then there's the junior doctors who are expected to work seven days a week on a flat rate...
I understand why some are concerned about Brexit, and I wouldn't want to be an expat right now. In terms of the effect of the potential exodus from the EU by expats, all I would say is that this will be a drop in the ocean for the NHS compared to the impact immigration and open borders has had over the past few years. I wonder if some of those expats have been away so long that they're looking at the situation through rose-tinted glasses. Personally, I'd rather pay for my treatment than be left to die on a waiting list.
