Fall in Health and Care Visa Applications as UK Tightens Immigration Rules

There has been an 81% drop in visa applications following the ban on overseas social care workers bringing family dependents, latest figures from the Home Office have revealed.

Applications have decreased since August 2023, falling to 2,900 in July 2024. There were 10,800 applications between April and July 2024, following the policy changes affecting social care workers and their family members – an 81% decrease compared to the same 4 months in 2023.

Former Home secretary James Cleverly announced in December 2023 that those who are sponsored by a Care Quality Commission registered organisation cannot bring their family if they are earning under £29,000.

According to government figures applications have decreased since August 2023, falling to 2,900 in July 2024.

There were 10,800 applications between April and July 2024, following the policy changes affecting social care workers and their family members – an 81% decrease compared to the same 4 months in 2023.

Applications for dependants on the Health and Care Worker route increased in-line with main applicants, peaking at 23,300 in August 2023. Applications for dependants have decreased since December 2023, falling to 5,100 in July 2024.

There were 22,200 applications for dependents on the Health and Care route between April and July 2024 – a 71% decrease compared to the same 4 months in 2023.

Overall, the number of people applying to come to the UK as skilled workers, healthcare workers or to study has fallen from 143,000 in July of last year to 91,300 in July of this year representing a decline of 36%.

The figures have been greeted with dismay by social care providers. Mike Padgham, Chair of the care provider organisation, The Independent Care Group (ICG) said: “The last government’s brutal measures are working and the lifeline of overseas staff to help us fill shifts in homecare and in care and nursing homes has been cut.

“The question is, what do we do now? As we warned at the time, no serious measures have been put in place to replace those overseas workers who have played such a key role in helping us to keep delivering care.

“With 1.6m people unable to get the care they need and demand for care growing every day, we are struggling to maintain services.

“We desperately need to see the new Government’s promised care workforce strategy and with it some funding measures that will help us to properly reward care workers and enable us to recruit at home, otherwise we will be in dire straits.

“Skills for Care reports that there are 131,000 vacancies in social care – with the availability of overseas staff dwindling, we are going to be very, very short.

“And as we approach winter, when staffing levels in health and social care are always placed under the greatest demand, will we be able to cope?”

Figures suggest we will need to recruit an extra 540,000 care workers to cope with rising demand, by 2040.

Nadra Ahmed, executive co-chairman of the National Care Association said the sector had started to see some staff return home or move to countries with “a less hostile environment around immigration”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme, she said: “If we had a domestic workforce willing to work then we wouldn’t need these international recruits.”

She added it would “take a few years” to build up a domestic workforce and warned that vacancies in the sector could rise to unsustainable levels.