The Home Office has revealed details of how its Health and Care Visa scheme will apply to foreign care workers as the UK steps up post-Brexit employment arrangements.
The aim of the Health and Care Visa is to ensure individuals of all nationalities working in eligible occupations with a job offer from the social care sector, NHS, or employers and organisations which provide services to the NHS, who have good working English, are incentivised to come to the UK.
There will be fast-track entry, with reduced application fees and dedicated support regarding the application process, for eligible individuals to come to the UK with their families.
Those who are eligible to apply for the Health and Care Visa, and their dependents, will also be exempt from having to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge.
At present, carers are not included in the Home Office list of eligible occupations for the Health and Care Visa scheme.
However, senior carers, senior assistants and senior support workers are included in a list of ‘Skilled Worker’ occupations.
The list of eligible Health and Care Visa professions will be updated in line with the launch of the new Skilled Worker route and the expanded skills threshold later this year, the Home Office said.
The Skilled Worker route will require those applying to accrue points by meeting a number of relevant criteria, such as have a job offer at the appropriate skill level, the ability to speak English and meeting a salary threshold.
Carers, care assistants, home carers and home assistants, and support workers are not eligible for the Skilled Worker route.
The exclusion of carers is in constrast to recent calls by social care sector leaders, who last week wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning that care homes and other services face a staffing "blackhole".
A Downing Street spokesman said the government wants employers to "invest more in training and development for care workers in this country".
"On care workers specifically, our independent migration advisers have said that immigration is not the sole answer here, which is why we have provided councils with an additional £1.5bn of funding for social care in 2021-22, as well as launching a new recruitment campaign," he added.
Front line workers in the health social care sector who are not eligible for the new Health and Care Visa will pay the Immigration Health Surcharge but will benefit from a reimbursement scheme. Further detail will follow in due course, the Home Office said.
Home Secretary Priti Patel (pictured) said: “Now we have left the EU, we are free to unleash this country’s full potential and implement the changes we need to restore trust in the immigration system and deliver a new fairer, firmer, skills-led system from 1 January 2021.”
