Allow jobless overseas healthcare workers in UK to stay for one year

Several health care workers who arrived in UK are left without jobs as their sponsors are unable to provide them with one or that there wasn't a job available for them when they arrived. Some firms lose their licence to sponsor due to their own mistakes.

People in the UK who lost their sponsorship are only permitted to stay 60 days. 60 days is a very short notice for a family to arrange departure as it could unsettle their children's schooling, lead to loss of rent or deposit, furnishing costs, air ticket and relocation costs. The request is to extend jobless health workers' stay in the UK for one more year for them to secure another job.

Officials from the Home Office and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) are working closely with the healthcare sector to improve their interactions with the immigration system and to help target non-compliance and exploitation. This includes updating international recruitment guidance and producing workers’ rights awareness guidance for those coming to the UK.

UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) compliance teams continue to investigate a range of allegations about the adult care sector. The evidence ranges from labour market offences such as charging for work finding fees and non-payment of National Minimum Wage to the higher level of exploitative abuses such as debt bondage and modern slavery.

UKVI have also encountered a significant number of non-genuine employers and also, in very high numbers, employers not being able to evidence hours of work available to overseas workers. This has led to two strands of action being taken:

• extra scrutiny being applied to employers who are asking to bring over an overseas worker to ensure they have enough work guaranteed in order to occupy that worker in addition to their current workforce; and • compliance activity being taken against employers currently sponsoring overseas workers when they are either unfit to do so or do not have sufficient levels work available for that overseas worker.

Individuals whose sponsor’s licence has been revoked also have other options available to them. They are free to seek alternative employment but would need to secure a fresh Certificate of Sponsorship. In recognition of the challenges this can create, UKVI officials are working closely with DHSC to support impacted care sector workers through this process.

Individuals are also able to switch to another route, provided they meet the requirements of that immigration route. Allowing these individuals to remain in the UK for a year without a sponsored job is not the solution as there is a high risk that they would end up destitute instead.

Alongside improving domestic recruitment and retention, we are also committed to improving the way international recruitment works in adult social care, ensuring individuals work for legitimate providers, and tackling the exploitation of workers. Through the international recruitment fund for the adult social care sector, £16 million has been made available to regional and sub-regional partnerships to develop solutions to local challenges around the use of international recruitment and strengthen safeguards against exploitation.  

That fund has led to the development of 15 regional and sub-regional partnerships covering all areas of England, which have used the money to develop and deliver support offers to adult social care providers in their respective areas to enable them to make use of international recruitment where this assists their workforce strategy. The funding has also been used by partnerships to provide support to international recruits to help them transition to working in the care system in England.

In response to the increase in reports of unethical employment practices in the Care sector, the Government will provide funding over the 2024-2025 financial year to focus on regional and sub-regional partnerships carrying out activities to prevent and respond to exploitative employment practices in their areas. The funding will also focus on supporting partnerships to provide continuity of care, including but not limited to activities which:

• facilitate in-country matching of overseas recruits who have been displaced by unethical practices or by their employer’s sponsorship licence being revoked; • strengthen ethical practices in international recruitment and the employment of staff working in adult social care; • develop shared solutions to prevent and respond to exploitative employment issues; and • build on the work of the previous fund.

The Government will also deliver a new deal for all working people. The Plan to Make Work Pay sets out a significant and ambitious agenda to ensure workplace rights are fit for a modern economy, empower working people and deliver economic growth. As part of this, the Government has committed to creating a new body, the Fair Work Agency (FWA), to be a single enforcement body for employment rights.

The Government has also committed to establishing a new Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector, empowering workers and the trade unions that represent them to negotiate fair pay and conditions, including staff benefits, terms and training, underpinned by rights for trade unions to access workplaces, in a regulated and responsible manner, for recruitment and organising purposes. All social care workers must be paid at least the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage for the work that they do. Time spent caring for clients, travelling between appointments, and waiting to start the appointment should be included in the pay calculation.

Home Office