Labour's ban on foreign workers will 'decimate' UK care homes campaigners warn

Campaigners says the "damaging" ban on foreign recruitment will be the final straw for Britain's beleaguered care homes.

There are now 131,000 vacancies across the battered social care sector but by 2040 at least 540,000 extra staff will be needed to cope with an aged population with complex needs.

Industry experts say the decades-long crisis has now become a national emergency after Labour vowed to ban the recruitment of overseas carers, tighten access to skilled worker visas, and raise costs for employers in an effort to curb near record net migration.

The number of vacant posts in the sector is almost three times the rate in the wider economy. Traditionally, overseas recruitment has helped plug huge gaps in the care workforce.

Independent Care Group Chair Mike Padgham said: "I think the Government has got it badly wrong. We do try to recruit staff from this country, but we simply haven't been able to get the numbers we need.

"We've been saying it to this government, the one before it, and the one before that - social care is crying out for reform. Instead, we've seen a string of damaging decisions - National Insurance hikes for employers, the VAT debacle, and now this ban on international recruitment. It feels like the Government is doing everything it can to decimate the sector."

The picture is now so bleak the Health and Social Care Committee has written to both Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Health Secretary Wes Streeting demanding reassurances there will be sufficient alternative measures in place to support providers to fill vacancies and evidence the "existing pool of care workers already in the UK" will be enough to mitigate any negative impact from ending overseas recruitment.

Additionally, it has raised concerns about an independent commission into adult social care being led by Baroness Louise Casey.

Acting Chair Paulette Hamilton said published terms of reference for the Casey Commission makes no explicit reference for the need to build a cross-party consensus on adult social care reform or hold cross-party talks.

Any recommendations it throws up will not be in place for another decade.

Across 30 years there have been no fewer than two government commissions, one government-commissioned review, three independent commissions, five white papers and 14 parliamentary committee inquiries on social care reform, but no meaningful action.

In June 2010 Sir Andrew Dilnot, Britain's most authoritative figure on social care, was asked by the Government to chair the Commission on Funding of Care and Support which published its findings in 2011. It recommended limiting individuals' contribution to social care costs at £35,000, after which the state would pay. His report was welcomed by then Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, and both David Cameron and Ed Miliband called for cross-party talks on the issue.

In January Sir Andrew appeared before a Parliamentary inquiry entitled Adult Social Care Reform: The Cost of Inaction and in a blistering evisceration of the three-decade malaise, he said it was "blindingly bleeding obvious" that something should be done in an area which, bafflingly, remains "pretty invisible".

Former minister Baroness Ros Altmann, 69, said: "The UK care system is the biggest social policy failure of modern times. With an ageing population and rising care costs, reforms were long overdue years ago.

"Perhaps today's politicians calculate that elderly and disabled people are unlikely to take to the streets to protest, and their families are too busy trying to look after their loved ones to fight."

Most carers get around £12 an hour, but paltry pay and long hours has seen many quit for better paid jobs in supermarkets, warehouses or fast food outlets.

In contrast Amazon warehouse workers can get £17 an hour and £1,000 signing-on bonuses.

David McGuire, boss of the Diagrama Foundation, a charity that supports vulnerable children and adults, said: "We are deeply concerned by the Government's proposal to end overseas recruitment of social care workers by 2028. Such a move would significantly worsen the already critical staffing pressures facing the care sector and risk undermining our ability to meet the growing and complex needs of those who rely on care.

"As a long-standing provider supporting older people and adults with learning disabilities, we know first-hand the value of a diverse and skilled workforce. Overseas professionals have long played a vital role in delivering high-quality care across the UK.

"Restricting access to international talent will drastically reduce the pool of available candidates, forcing every care provider to compete for the same limited number of workers. The notion that we can quickly replace tens of thousands of overseas staff with homegrown carers is simply unrealistic. Training and retaining such numbers would take years, and we have urgent vacancies today

"This policy risks pushing the sector into a deeper crisis and must be reconsidered in light of the real-world impact on vulnerable people and the services they depend on."

Net migration climbed to a record 906,000 in June 2023, and last year it stood at 728,000.

Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Policy Natasha Curry said: "Nobody is served well when social care is caught in the political crossfire of the immigration debate and governments keep turning the overseas recruitment taps on and off. Closing off international recruitment without properly addressing our poor domestic supply of care workers is hugely risky, but social care is rarely granted the political status it needs to be a government priority.

"It is absolutely right to crack down on the exploitation of overseas workers, but care providers won't be able to boost their domestic workforce overnight.

"Back in 2020/21 social care job vacancies peaked during Covid and it proved unsustainable, leading to a big increase in overseas recruitment, and not much has changed since then to encourage more domestic workers to join the sector. Continuing to describe care workers as 'lower skilled' is also unlikely to help."

The Government said its Immigration White Paper will "reshape" a system towards those who contribute most to economic growth, with higher skills standards for graduates and workers.

It said: "New requirements on employers to boost domestic training will end the reliance on international recruitment, restoring order to a failed system that saw net migration quadruple between 2019 and 2023."