Immigration plans a ‘devastating blow’

A care home owner has said the government’s proposed changes to immigration rules were a “devastating blow” for the sector.

The Prime Minister’s proposals to cut immigration include scrapping a visa scheme, set up by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, that allowed firms to hire health and social care workers from overseas.

Mike Padgham, managing director at Saint Cecilia’s Care Group in Scarborough, said by 2040 the sector would need 500,000 more workers and asked where they would be coming from.

Sir Keir Starmer said the plans, which tackle legal migration to the UK, would ensure a “selective” and “fair” system, where “we decide who comes to this country”.

“It is another devastating blow that this government has put upon us,” Mr Padgham said.

As part of the new system, firms will be required to hire British nationals or extend the visas of overseas workers already in the country.

Home Office figures estimate this change will cut the number of workers coming to the UK by between 7,000 and 8,000 a year.

Mr Padgham has previously said without overseas staff his firm could not continue and he does not believe the change in rules will help recruit British nationals.

“The key thing is we want to recruit people from England, we are doing everything we can to recruit local people,” he said.

“But sadly the pay is not great, we want people to come in but they don’t want the work and we want people in social care who want to work in it, not forced to work in it.”

Dan Archer, who runs the Sheffield home care company Visiting Angels, said he had taken a different route, though he said he understood the issues facing many providers.

“There’s been a dependency for the last few years on overseas workers,” he said.

“I took the decision that if we started from a position of paying better, using proper contracts, then we would find it easier to find UK workers.”

He said the firm now had 1,600 staff.

“The solution works,” he said, but added that the challenge was how it was funded.

Cimma Menone is from Nigeria and has been sponsored as a care worker for the past three years in Scarborough.

She said the announcement from the government made her feel unwelcome.

“When you feel unsafe, when you begin to feel not supported by the government, when you are here to contribute to the healthcare sector, then I don’t think it’s a welcoming policy,” she said.

The proposed changes come after the government tightened the rules restricting the ability of workers to bring their loved ones to the UK.

The time immigrants will have to live in the UK before they can apply for the right to stay indefinitely will be doubled – to 10 years – under the proposals.

Isabel Santos, deputy manager at St Cecilia’s, said these changes meant homes would become dependent on agency staff, which she said was bad because it impacted on “continuity of care” for residents.

“Overseas staff want to learn and progress their careers,” she said.

“With these rules maybe people will go to other countries where they feel more supported.”

Jordan Stapleton, from the union Unison, said the entire care system was “in trouble” as providers were dependent on contracts with councils that had been dealing with years of cuts.

“If care providers can’t get the guaranteed level of funding from the council then they can’t pass on that wage and security to the worker,” he said.

The government said its plans for fair pay in social care would boost recruitment in the sector.

The Prime Minister said the government immigration proposals would create “a system that is controlled, selective and fair and a clean break from the past” that would “ensure settlement in this country is a privilege that must be earned, not a right”.