> By hiring a lot of employees from poorer EU countries the NHS left those places with shortages.
Not so. My sister-in-law is Filipino by birth, now a U.K. citizen, and trained as a nurse in the Philippines specifically in order to leave her old country. This is apparently a common thing, and a way for Filipino kids to support their families in ways that aren’t possible by remaining in the local economy.
> The Brexit vote was in 2016. The NHS has had plenty of time to prepare.
AFAICT, it’s a 3-4 year degree even just for nursing (and way longer for doctors). Given the U.K. academic year, students starting a degree in 2016 would’ve already chosen a course before the referendum, so the U.K. has really only had one full cycle of nurse training, while doctors are still limited by the decisions Labour made when they were last in office.
How well or badly this goes depends entirely on if the Home Office is willing to turn a blind eye to useful foreigners who may not be technically compliant with the new rules, and how good everyone else in government is at details. I’m not saying you’re doomed, but the current U.K. administration doesn’t have a good record with either of these things.