Failure to extend visas of overseas home care workers will leave 'huge void' in workforce

"How were NHS professionals given visa extensions while essential care workers were excluded?

At the height of the pandemic, there were times when our care workers were actually serenaded on their journey to and from service users' homes to celebrate the valuable, essential work they were doing in order to protect our elderly and vulnerable service users. Every Thursday evening, we received a massive influx of pictures and messages from neighbours, friends and strangers thanking the care workers for their contribution during the weekly ‘Clap for Carers’.

Our Barrier Teams, who care for service users with COVID and support them to recover in their own homes, are made up predominantly from overseas workers. This essential service kept our hospitals in Hertfordshire flowing by making space for the deluge of patients being admitted to hospital with COVID. Our overseas care workers contributed massively to stop the NHS from being overwhelmed.

The government have overlooked these essential social care workers in their policy to extend oversees health professionals’ visas. Despite all that was said at the time, it seems we have returned to the previous policy, which was to separate the NHS workforce from the undervalued social care workforce. Why is our work force treated as expendable?

This is a very short-sighted strategy. Without our oversees care workers we will currently have 100,000 unfilled social care worker jobs in the UK. Who is going to care for our increasing number of elderly and vulnerable people in the future? Our overseas workers are returning home leaving a huge dark void in the workforce.

It is not the first time our social care workforce has been overlooked and considering the Queen’s speech in recent days, it will not be the last. We continue to have an underfunded and understaffed social care system affecting the care of our society’s most vulnerable people.

It was encouraging to see the little green CARE badges recognising us, and it was uplifting for our teams, while struggling with the pandemic, to receive the recognition for their work in the clap for carers. However, a badge does not fill the need for care workers and a round of applause does not pay the bills or fund the visas. We desperately need these wonderful people to stay.”

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