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New European
18-05-2025
- Business
- New European
Labour's immigration plans will close my care home
As he tries to stall Reform's surge with a crackdown on visas for lower-skilled workers, Keir Starmer has decided that care homes will no longer be able to recruit from overseas. For Dr Stephens, this is madness. Dr Elizabeth Stephens owns and runs a care home in Lincoln. When I chatted to her about the government's latest immigration policy she was spitting nails. Before Covid she employed four eastern Europeans out of a staff of 47, but they didn't return after the pandemic. Now 60-80% of her staff are either of Indian or African background. Without them, she explains, she wouldn't have a business at all. 'If we cannot sponsor visas or recruit overseas staff, we cannot run a care home,' she says. Dr Stephens is not alone in that analysis. Dr Jane Townson OBE, chief executive of the Homecare Association agrees. She represents carers who look after people in their own homes, a sector that employs more people than care homes, and says: 'The government has pulled the rug out from under our feet. It feels like this is a kneejerk reaction to Reform's success in the local elections, and without a plan' In the last two years 70,000 British carers have left the workforce and yet we know that by 2040 we will need another 540,000 additional care workers as the population ages. Already 25% of the care workforce are immigrants, and the industry estimates it will need 540,000 additional care workers by 2040 to meet rising demand. Dr Townson is very doubtful that local British workers will turn up in anything like large enough numbers to fill that gap. 'It's really difficult,' she told me. 'Half of British applicants don't even turn up for interview, they just apply to keep getting benefits, they have no intention of turning up.' But it is not just a matter of gaming the system. Unison's head of social care Gavin Edwards says, 'While hourly pay rates remain stuck just above the legal minimum and zero-hours contracts are commonplace, the care sector isn't an attractive career choice. People know they can earn more delivering parcels or making coffees on the high street'. Another problem is that the workforce that is currently available mostly lives in the wrong part of the country. There are lots of people looking for work in London and other big cities, but much less in the countryside, where people retire. Read more: Money alone will not fix the NHS Foreign workers are more likely to go where the work is, and Dr Townson says there are other reasons to prefer them too: 'Immigrants are excellent, better educated than our domestic workers, many have nursing qualifications, they work longer hours – a minimum of 37.5 hours and many work more.' But Yvette Cooper doesn't seem to care about any of that. In the panic to try to bring down immigration numbers she is now claiming that it is 'time to end that care worker recruitment from abroad'. Yet the home secretary must know full well that even with huge levels of foreign recruitment the care sector is currently short of 131,000 workers. Firms will now have to try to recruit British nationals, although the government will not be drawn on who is going to find the money necessary to attract British workers into the sector. In a world where British people were willing to do the work at the current pay rate, there would be no need to use immigrants. But they are not, so higher pay and better conditions are the only way the sector can try to attract more British staff. In return, this means either higher fees for elderly patients or increased costs for local government, which funds so much care and is a bill that will finally have to be paid by HM Treasury. Gavin Edwards says: 'Better-paid domestic workforce in social care is vital, as is a proper career structure. But none of this will happen overnight. Until it does, the sector will be stuck in a doom-loop of staffing shortages. It's only the recruitment of workers from overseas that's stopped the system from falling over.' Elizabeth Stephens knows this only too well. She has tried recruiting British staff, but they complain about the pay, the hours and the work. Of three apprentices she recruited, two dropped out, because they didn't like the hours. Elizabeth also believes immigrants work harder, have a fantastic attendance record and are very compassionate. She would recruit more locals but 'British people just do not apply for the jobs'. Even paying more won't attract British workers Elizabeth claims because 'they just do not want to do the work', while the government's claim that it will just train more British care workers to fill the gaps runs against all the evidence. The government's policy of ending the recruitment of foreign care workers is therefore likely to cause a deepening crisis in a care sector which is already struggling, and it will also almost certainly cost more in the long term too. The policy is stupid and it is also short sighted. The care sector is the poor relative of the NHS, but an underappreciated one. The NHS constantly finds that its beds are occupied by elderly patients who do not really need to be there – they should be in care instead. Better care would release thousands of beds and cost much less than keeping people in hospitals too. It's therefore baffling to see the government going against the facts, the evidence and the NHS's best interest by removing access to the very workers who would care for the people filling those care beds. And all, it seems, for a panicked reaction to Reform's surge in the polls – even though attempting to outflank Nigel Farage and co on immigration is a fool's errand. The government should have made the case for immigration to help out the health and care sectors – an Ipsos poll just before last year's election showed that 51% of people are only too happy to recruit foreign doctors or nurses into the NHS and 42% have no problem with immigrant care home workers. Instead, we are pushing a creaking care system to the point of no return just for a cheap headline. It is careless and callous.
The Independent
12-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Care homes will close thanks to Starmer's immigration crackdown, providers warn
More social care services will be forced to close their doors as a result of Sir Keir Starmer's immigration crackdown, providers have warned as they hit out at the government's 'whack-a-mole' approach to the sector. The plans, which include ending the recruitment of care workers from overseas, will leave older people and disabled patients will be left without access to safe care, care companies added. The latest government data shows 26,100 people between April last year and April 2025 used the health and care worker visa route. This is down from 143,900 from March 2023 to March 2024. The drop in applicants came following changes introduced in 2024 to the overseas visa for health and care workers, which restricted the ability of care workers to also bring over dependents. Restrictions in care worker visas have, in part, come as a response to concerns over unethical practices and exploitation of the new visa route opened up by the Home Office in 2021. This new route allowed for the health and care visa to be used for care staff. Dr Jane Townson OBE, chief executive of the Homecare Association, which represents home care providers, told The Independent: 'This policy signals, yet again, social care is not a priority for government, whatever ministers may say. The changes to immigration rules, layered on top of rising costs and chronic underfunding, will force more homecare providers to shut their doors. This is the brutal reality. When that happens, it is older and disabled people who can't get the help they need to live safely and with dignity at home. 'If the government genuinely cared about the people we support, it would not make policy decisions in isolation without listening to those delivering care on the ground.' Nadra Ahmed, co-chair of the National Care Association, said in response to the changes, 'I think in reality if we can't get a workforce, we can't provide care services, and if we can't deliver care services, ultimately the results would be that services will close their doors. We saw this post-Brexit when the resilience in the sector was so low. 'This [new policy] has all elements of being a repeat of that [Brexit] unless the government has got a plan tucked away to replace the migrant workforce… There is 'almost a conspiracy theory' as to what the plan is for social care, is this a way of decimating the sector in a way that it becomes nationalised? 'There seems to be, very uncharacteristically of a Labour government, a complete and total misunderstanding of where social care fits into the economy' Experts have criticised the government's approach to social care, warning that the latest changes come without any promise of further funding or investment to encourage more domestic staff. Lucinda Allen, policy fellow for the Health Foundation, told The Independent: 'We need to remember that migrant workers have long played a really important role in sustaining the UK's health and care sector. 'The sector is already in a very fragile state, and that's partly due to the government's successive governments taking a whack-a-mole approach to social care. The back and forth over the care worker visa is in part a consequence of the central government's limited understanding, oversight and funding of the care system.' 'There are lots of issues at play here at the moment, with limited funding from central government, the increase to the national living wage and the increases to employer national insurance contributions.' 'So we've already heard providers saying that they may need to there will be an impact on their services, as a result of those decisions. and that obviously can impact people's care, can leave people without care.' One owner of a home care provider in the North West, Stella Shaw, told The Independent that overseas workers have been 'absolutely vital to the success and the sustainability of my business.' 'Without them, I simply wouldn't be able to meet the growing demand for you know, quality home care…Their contribution has enabled us to maintain continuity of care, after Brexit and COVID, and those sorts of major events, and you know, reduce hospital admissions. 'I worry so much…With these changes. I can't honestly say that it isn't going to negatively impact our ability to continue to deliver care. Our elderly population are going to be left vulnerable, and if everybody feels the same as I do, it leaves the question, who is going to provide the care?'
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Care homes face ban on recruiting workers from abroad in huge visa crackdown
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government will close the care worker visa route to end the reliance on overseas staff in a crackdown on immigration unveiled on Monday Care homes will be ordered to recruit from the UK under a major shake-up of immigration rules. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government will close the care worker visa route to end the reliance on overseas staff as part of a package of reforms due to be unveiled on Monday. But care operators warned the move could deepen persistent staffing shortages, risking harm to older and disabled people. The Homecare Association, which represents operators, said the sector was struggling to fill over 130,000 vacancies - despite more than 185,000 overseas recruits who joined the workforce between 2021/22 and 2023/24. Ms Cooper told the BBC: "We will allow them [care operators] to continue to extend visas and also to recruit from – there's more than 10,000 people who came on a care worker visa where the sponsorship visa was cancelled. "Effectively they came to jobs that weren't actually here or that were not of the proper standard, they are here and care companies should be recruiting from that pool of people rather than recruiting from abroad. So we are closing recruitment from abroad." Dr Jane Townson, Chief Executive of the Homecare Association, said international recruitment was "a lifeline" for providers. She said: "Care providers are already struggling to recruit within the UK. We are deeply concerned the Government has not properly considered what will happen to the millions of people who depend on care at home to live safely and independently.' She warned ministers the plans were being introduced in a "vacuum" as promised fair pay agreements for the sector designed to encourage Brits to join the workforce are still being worked on. Dr Townson said: "We urge the government to consult with the sector and agree interim measures allowing care providers to recruit sufficient staff. Otherwise, we risk repeating the chaos of 2021, when care shortages increased hospital admissions, delayed hospital discharges and left thousands without the help they needed.' It comes as the Government prepares to unveil long awaited plans for a crackdown on immigration on Monday. The Home Secretary said she was aiming for a "substantial" reduction in net migration figures - the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK and leaving each year. Net migration reached 728,000 in 2024, despite a string of Tory PMs promising to bring it down. Ms Cooper refused to set a Tory-style target on the numbers, saying: "We're not going to take that really failed approach, because I think what we need to do is rebuild credibility and trust in the whole system." But she said she expected around 50,000 fewer lower skilled visas to be approved next year due to changes to the care visa and the skilled worker visa. Today, the Home Office confirmed that the skills threshold for visas will be increased to graduate level, with salary thresholds increasing to match. Officials will also set up a labour market evidence group to examine which sectors are reliant on overseas workers. Ministers will also reform deportation rules so the Home Office is notified of all foreign nationals convicted of offences, which officials say will make it easier to remove people who commit offences. It comes as Labour seeks to neutralise the threat from Nigel Farage after Reform UK swept to power in 10 councils in England and snatched a by-election win in Labour-held Runcorn and Helsby by six votes.
