Overseas care workers face a 15-year wait - three times the current level - to be able to settle in the UK, under government plans to tighten up the immigration system.
The proposal, issued for consultation yesterday, was dubbed by sector leaders as a "a grave injustice" that risked deepening a "crisis" in the social care workforce.
It follows a ban, imposed in July this year, on employers recruiting care staff from abroad on the health and care worker visa, itself the latest in a string of restrictions that have significantly reduced the number of international workers coming into the sector since last year.
Proposed tripling of wait for settlement
Currently, staff employed on a skilled worker visa - of which the health and care worker visa is a sub-category - can apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK after five years, the typical length of their visa. This gives them the right to live, work and study in the country for as long as they want, and makes them eligible to claim benefits.
Under the government's plans, 10 years would become the standard waiting time for settlement, with this figure reduced or increased based on factors including your level of English, salary, whether or not you work in public services or the qualification level required for your role.
For roles below regulated qualifications framework (RQF) level 6 - the equivalent of an undergraduate degree - the Home Office has proposed increasing the qualifying period for settlement to 15 years. This includes care workers and senior care workers, whose roles are classified as being at RQF level 2.
These workers would also not gain any benefit from working in a public service.
Significant growth in overseas recruitment
Adult social care vacancy levels hit an all-time high of 164,000 (10.6%) in March 2022, following a year in which the size of the workforce fell for the first time since records began.
During the same year, the government added care workers to its shortage occupation list, having added senior care workers to it in 2021, enabling providers to sponsor overseas staff to come and work in those roles under the health and care worker visa.
According to Skills for Care, independent sector providers recruited 105,000 people from overseas into direct care roles in 2023-24, up from 80,000 in 2022-23 and just 20,000 in 2021-22.
However, though this helped reduce the vacancy rate, which fell to 8.3% in March 2024, there were multiple reports of abuses of the system, by recruiters or employers, including through the exploitation of staff. Between July 2022 and December 2024, the government revoked more than 470 sponsor licences from care sector employers.
Tightening of immigration rules
Amid a general political turn towards toughening up immigration policy, successive governments have imposed restrictions on overseas recruitment that have radically cut the numbers of international staff coming into adult social care:
- From March 2024, care staff recruited under the health and care worker visa were barred from bringing dependants with them, while providers not registered with the Care Quality Commission were prevented from sponsoring overseas workers.
- From April 2025, providers were prohibited from recruiting care staff from abroad without having sought to fill vacancies using international workers already in the country who had been left without a sponsor, including because their original employer had had their sponsorship licence revoked.
- From July 2025, providers were banned outright from recruiting care workers or senior care workers through the health and care worker visa. Those currently on the visa were allowed to continue in post, and potentially have their visas extended, while employers were also permitted to recruit people already in the country under other visas onto the health and care worker visa until 2028.
According to Skills for Care's latest workforce data, the number of people starting direct care roles in the independent sector having arrived in the UK during the year fell from 105,000 in 2023-24 to 50,000 in 2024-25.
More stringent controls 'designed to curb costs to the UK'
The Home Office's latest crackdown is designed to deal with projections that about 462,000 people in the UK on the health and care worker visa will settle in the UK under the current five-year rule, though it admitted there was significant uncertainty about this figure.
This would include many family members who arrived as dependants of overseas workers, a group that accounted for 56% of health and care worker visas issued in 2022-23.
Justifying its plan in its policy paper, published yesterday, the Home Office said: "Migrants on lower wages who bring non-working dependants and children are likely to present significant fiscal costs to the UK. It is therefore right that we apply more stringent controls for this group before they qualify for settled status."
'A grave injustice'
However, the policy drew sparked anger and concern for the sector's future among organisations representing care staff and providers.
“Placing care workers on a 15-year settlement route is a grave injustice to the very people who keep our care system standing," said Martin Green, chief executive of independent providers' body Care England.
He added that the proposals would "intensify" the "crisis" in the social care workforce, adding: "They will push away the dedicated people we rely on most at the very moment the country needs them."
Nadra Ahmed, co-chair of fellow provider body the National Care Association, issued a similar message, saying that the proposal gave "no thought about the value of those who have come and settled and contributed to the care community" and "no recognition of the support they have given over the years to those who need care and support".
'Care services will collapse without overseas staff'
UNISON's general secretary, Christina McAnea warned that care services would "collapse" without overseas staff, in a call for the government to give care staff, along with other public service workers, exemptions from increased settlement timeframes.
“These plans would also leave migrant care workers at the mercy of employers for a decade and a half," she added. “They’re already trapped by visa rules that leave them open to exploitation. Reform of the visa system, taking sponsorship away from employers, is essential."
For the Care Workers' Charity, chief executive Karolina Gerlich said the proposals were "unfair and an unnecessary burden" on care workers from overseas.
"Migrant care workers make an essential contribution to our communities and to the people they support every day," she added. "Policies that diminish their security and wellbeing risk undermining the foundations of the entire social care system.”
Celebrate those who've inspired you
Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can't help but gush about?
Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.
Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
*Please note that, despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry*
If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com
