Immigration rules to be relaxed to recruit social care staff

[dutchman]

Immigration rules are to be temporarily relaxed for overseas care workers in a bid to recruit and keep staff, the government has announced



Social care workers, care assistants and home care workers are to become eligible for a health and care visa for a 12-month period.

The government said this would make it easier to fill gaps in workforces.

It followed warnings the sector faced "severe and increasing" problems with hiring and keeping staff after Brexit.

Care workers are to be added to the shortage occupation list, which is designed to help migrants get work visas to fill jobs where there are shortages.

The temporary measures are expected to come into effect early next year, the Department of Health and Social Care said, and will be in place for a minimum of 12 months.

BBC political correspondent Helen Catt said the move was likely to be welcomed as a short-term help but there would be calls for ministers to fix the longer term pressures in the care system.

Care providers are experiencing high vacancy rates and turnover, and pressure on staffing is being exacerbated by the recent spread of Omicron.

This week, the chief executive of MHA - the UK's largest charitable care provider - called for local councils to set out how they would support care if shortages worsened.

This month the Migration Advisory Committee said burnout from the pandemic and the requirement for care home workers to be fully vaccinated risked increasing an existing shortage.

It concluded many issues with the sector predated Brexit, and "underfunding" was "the underlying cause" of difficulties.

[rebbonk]

Maybe if our imbecilic government hadn't decreed that care workers needed to have vaccines against covid, we wouldn't be in quite the mess we are now? Expect a repeat performance next April when the same idiotic rules come into force as regards NHS staff.