The care sector has reacted angrily at the exclusion of certain social care roles from the UK government’s new Health and Care Visa for foreign workers.
North Yorkshire representative body Independent Care Group (ICG) accused the government of ignoring the “vital role social care staff played and the recruitment crisis the sector is facing” by leaving carers, care assistants, home carers, home care assistants and support workers out of its post-Brexit point-based immigration scheme.
“In granting this visa to NHS workers but not to social care workers the government has again demonstrated how it treats social care as the poor relation. We hoped that might have changed but clearly it hasn’t,” said ICG chairman Mike Padgham (pictured).
According to Skills for Care, some 115,000 EU nationals work in care and 134,000 people from outside the EU.
“For the government to say that people already here can remain and provide ‘really important care to the elderly and the vulnerable’ but then say no more can come, beggars belief. This hastens the need to merge the two together so that both can be treated equally,” added Padgham.
The ICG said there are more than 100,000 care vacancies and warned demand will outstrip supply “very soon”.
“This has not been thought through and is another kick in the teeth for social care. If we cannot recruit from within and outside the EU, then where are the people to fill the vacancies and meet future demand going to come from,” said Padgham.
Care England, the largest representative body for independent providers of adult social care, also expressed disappointment at the government’s proposals.
“Despite repeated calls from both adult social care and the NHS’ own representative bodies, including the Cavendish Coalition, the government has failed to pay any dues to the sector’s specific needs thus leaving us out in the cold,” said chief executive Martin Green.
“This is particularly worrying given the wider context of the instability which Covid-19 has placed upon the adult social care sector. The impending threat of the international workforce supply being turned off has the potential to de-stabilise the sector even further with potentially disastrous consequences,” he added.
Green said adult social care should be perceived as a good career choice on a par with the NHS. To do that, he added, substantial investment would be needed from government.
“There will be a continuing need for overseas staff until the government delivers a proper workforce strategy for social care and also the money required to give the staff the salaries and conditions they richly deserve.
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services meanwhile said the care sector needs access to the “broadest possible pool of candidates” to ensure the availability of “high quality care and support services for those people that need it”.
“Government must provide a sector-specific visa route enabling international recruitment into social care until such time that that reform and funding proposals have been agreed and implemented,” said ADASS president James Bullion.
“As a nation we cannot, and must not, go into what could be the most challenging winter in recent history for health and social care with further uncertainty about where our workforce will come from,” he added.
The GMB trade union meanwhile said the government’s new immigration rules are an “embarrassing shambles”.
“At a time when care is facing its greatest ever crisis, and with care homes reliant on hundreds of thousands of workers from outside Europe and facing staffing shortfalls, ministers are cutting off their noses to spite their faces,” said national secretary Rehana Azam.
“It's those who rely on care and their families who now face being punished by this ministerial incompetence,” she added.
