New “hostile environment” for immigrants forcing nursing and care staff to return home

A new “hostile environment” for immigrants is putting off NHS and care staff from applying for jobs in the UK while forcing others to return home, health and legal experts have told i.

Just 2,900 people applied for a health and social care visa in July, down 82 per cent compared with the same month in 2023, latest immigration figures have revealed.

The sharp decline follows rule changes, introduced by the Conservative government, which banned most international students and health and social care workers bringing family to the UK.

The number of visa applications from health and care worker dependants fell to 22,200 between April and July 2024 – down from 75,300 for the same period last year.

Social care leaders said the tightened rules would have a devastating effect on efforts to fill the 125,000 vacancies that still exist in the sector.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, told i: “This latest decline in health and care visa applications undoubtedly puts paid to the prospect of a fully staffed and functioning social care system, and highlights the bind the Government is in as it juggles two conflicting policy objectives – reducing immigration on the one hand, and staffing up social care on the other.

“In the absence of the greatly improved pay package everyone in social care knows is needed to make roles attractive to workers already based here, we have become dangerously reliant on staff from overseas to keep things running smoothly.

“With immigration such a politically sensitive issue, this steep decline highlights the risk to the care system when the supply of essential care workers from abroad is reduced to such a trickle making staff vacancies soar once again.

“This situation is incredibly difficult for care providers and for local authority commissioners too, but above all for older and disabled people who are likely to find the task of securing good care even harder than it already is.”

The previous government had also proposed raising the salary someone would need to earn to bring family members to the UK from £18,600 to £38,700. Following a backlash it reduced the threshold to £29,000 and said further increases would be introduced at an unspecified date.

Last month, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the new Labour Government would keep the threshold at £29,000 until a review by the Migration Advisory Committee was completed.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said they are keeping at £29,000 the salary threshold for someone who needs to bring family members to the UK until a review is complete (Photo: James Manning/PA)

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said they are keeping at £29,000 the salary threshold for someone who needs to bring family members to the UK until a review is complete (Photo: James Manning/PA)

Nadra Ahmed, chair of the National Care Association (NCA), said tightening up immigration rules had come at a time when the sector had just begun making inroads into record vacancy rates. The figure has been brought down to around 125,000 from 165,000 in 2021-22, but was now in danger of creeping back up again.

“The latest figures are worrying as we’re not out of the woods yet,” she said. “We still have a workforce problem, but now we’re also starting to see the international recruits who have come in under those visas starting to go back home because they are feeling unwelcome.

“I just heard this morning of a migrant worker who was attacked after she came off [a care home] shift over the last few days. This is getting more so because the rhetoric has been stronger over the last six months.

“We also hear from recruiters going abroad that the narrative is very different. For example, in India people are being directed to other English-speaking countries where there are workforce needs as the UK isn’t being very welcoming. Other options, such as Australia and New Zealand, Canada are being suggested as those countries are much more open to immigration with dependants. It’s a very unwelcoming and quite a hostile environment to come to.”

Ms Ahmed said the NCA’s preferred option “will always be a domestic workforce”, but that will become harder to maintain with staff now no longer able to bring dependants.

“It is quite a challenge for people to stay here in the UK if they come without dependants, without support, without family and friends, and we still need migrant workers [in the care sector],” she said.

“The demographics suggest we need another 400,000 by 2030, which is not that far away, and there isn’t a real slowing down in the vacancies. It has come down to 125,000 from 160,000, but you have to count in the 70,000 migrant workers that have come through the visa route. So even if 50 per cent of those chose to go back home the vacancies would be straight back up again.

“The improvement would be a bigger domestic workforce, but for that to happen we need to pay staff more and that would require more investment.”