Thousands of care workers could be lost as a result of “disastrous” visa changes: carer jobs
Exclusive: The social care (carer jobs) and NHS will engage in “perverse” competition for foreign workers as a result of new visa regulations.
According to The Independent, health officials have alerted Rishi Sunak to the dire consequences that the “perverse” new visa regulations will have for the care industry.
The coalition sent a letter to the prime minister stating that changes to care workers’ visas that prevent them from bringing family members into the country will be a “seismic step backwards” for the NHS and social care.
The government last Monday unveiled the strict new immigration regulations, claiming that they will cut the number of individuals permitted to immigrate to the UK by hundreds of thousands annually.
Under the new regulations, foreign caregivers who are not employed by the NHS will not be permitted to bring dependent family members to the UK.
The Cavendish Group, which is made up of the NHS Confederation, NHS Employers, British Medical Association, Independent Healthcare Providers Network, and National Care Association, warned Mr. Sunak in a letter obtained by The Independent that the crackdown would be “disastrous.”
“We are deeply concerned that the government’s other changes to the Health and Care Visa risk taking us a seismic step backwards,” the warning, which was sent on Friday, stated. As you are aware, the workforce in social care and health could not operate without its international colleagues.
Therefore, it would be disastrous for our services and less appealing for much-needed social care workers to choose the UK as their place of employment if it were assumed that they would work in the country without their dependents.
The letter also contained a warning, saying that there is a risk that the new policy will unfairly increase competition between social care and health in terms of international recruitment because the NHS is exempt from changes to the Health and Care Visa.
The Migration Advisory Committee recommended that care workers be added to the list of shortage occupations, and the government took this advice into consideration in February 2022.
According to the Cavendish Group, this has resulted in some progress in the workforce for adult social care, where there is currently a 9.9% vacancy gap.
Data indicates that an estimated 70,000 people arrived in the UK and began working in the care sector between March 2022 and March 2023.
But the UK’s adult social care workforce data collection organization Skills for Care has cautioned that by 2035, the county will require a quarter of a million more workers, or 440,000, to meet demand.
NHS Employers CEO Danny Mortimer told The Independent that the government’s new “high risk” policy was unveiled without consulting the leaders in health and care who would be affected.
The Cavendish Group has demanded that the government provide the evidence it has gathered regarding the new policy’s likely effects on the NHS’s waiting times and staffing shortages in social care.
“The prime minister has made clear that current levels of migration to the UK are far too high,” a Home Office spokesperson stated. For this reason, the government this week unveiled a plan to drastically reduce net migration and establish a framework that benefits the people of Britain.
“It is a long-standing rule that anyone bringing dependents into the UK must be able to provide for them financially. The minimum income requirement makes sure that families can support themselves rather than relying on government assistance and can integrate if they want to fully participate in British society.
According to a government spokesman, “The prime minister and home secretary have announced a plan to slash migration levels, curb abuse of the system, and deliver the biggest-ever reduction in net migration because we continue to face unprecedented levels of immigration since the pandemic.”
“Estimations of the impact of these announcements will be placed in the House of Commons Library, as promised by the home secretary. This will be explained later, along with the development of a regulatory impact assessment.
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/rishi-sunak-visa-change-care-workers-b2462418.html
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