Immigration is a ‘perfect storm’ for adult social care

This comes after the Home Office rejected recommendations by its Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to open UK borders to foreign senior care workers at the end of the Brexit transition period.

The letter also takes issue with the planned points-based immigration system which does not provide sufficient routes for adult social care workers to enter the United Kingdom.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: ‘Our letter to the Home Secretary stresses that her Department’s plans, when combined with the rejection of the MACs Shortage Occupation List recommendations, have the potential to create a perfect storm.

‘The adult social care sector is already afflicted by a workforce crisis as a result of COVID-19. These plans have the potential to further exacerbate the pressures upon the sector.

‘Care England will continue to campaign on behalf of the sector to ensure the creation of an immigration system which accommodates the sector’s needs.

The government’s policy actions in relation to immigration will likely be a litmus test of the extent to which it values the sector, a test which it is currently failing.’

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) recommended last month that senior care workers and registered managers should be placed on the Shortage Occupation List.

However, it resisted recommending that care workers should be added to the list and instead called for jobs within the sector to be made more attractive to UK workers by increasing salaries rather than relying on migrants.

In a letter to the MAC, Home Secretary Priti Patel said that she would not follow the guidance of the review, opting instead to wait to assess the combined impact of both the coronavirus and the new immigration rules.

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