The health and social care visa route was introduced in August 2020 as a response to labour shortages after Brexit and the COVID pandemic. Now, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has found that the Home Office’s “limited understanding of the sector” has put care workers at risk of exploitation.
An independent report, published in March, details the Home Office’s “shocking” mishandling of the visas. It highlights problems in the way that the system to give social care providers the ability to sponsor workers from abroad operates. In one case, “275 certificates of sponsorship [were] granted to a care home that did not exist”.
