More social care services will be forced to close their doors as a result of Sir Keir Starmer’s immigration crackdown, providers have warned as they hit out at the government’s “whack-a-mole” approach to the sector.
The plans, which include ending the recruitment of care workers from overseas, will leave older people and disabled patients will be left without access to safe care, care companies added.
The latest government data shows 26,100 people between April last year and April 2025 used the health and care worker visa route. This is down from 143,900 from March 2023 to March 2024.
The drop in applicants came following changes introduced in 2024 to the overseas visa for health and care workers, which restricted the ability of care workers to also bring over dependents.
Restrictions in care worker visas have, in part, come as a response to concerns over unethical practices and exploitation of the new visa route opened up by the Home Office in 2021. This new route allowed for the health and care visa to be used for care staff.
Estimates published by the government suggest axing the use of the health and care visa for overseas staff will result in seven thousand fewer care workers.
Dr Jane Townson OBE, chief executive of the Homecare Association, which represents home care providers, told The Independent: “This policy signals, yet again, social care is not a priority for government, whatever ministers may say. The changes to immigration rules, layered on top of rising costs and chronic underfunding, will force more homecare providers to shut their doors. This is the brutal reality. When that happens, it is older and disabled people who can’t get the help they need to live safely and with dignity at home.
“If the government genuinely cared about the people we support, it would not make policy decisions in isolation without listening to those delivering care on the ground.”
Nadra Ahmed, co-chair of the National Care Association, said in response to the changes, “I think in reality if we can’t get a workforce, we can’t provide care services, and if we can’t deliver care services, ultimately the results would be that services will close their doors. We saw this post-Brexit when the resilience in the sector was so low.
“This [new policy] has all elements of being a repeat of that [Brexit] unless the government has got a plan tucked away to replace the migrant workforce… There is “almost a conspiracy theory” as to what the plan is for social care, is this a way of decimating the sector in a way that it becomes nationalised?
“There seems to be, very uncharacteristically of a Labour government, a complete and total misunderstanding of where social care fits into the economy”
Experts have criticised the government’s approach to social care, warning that the latest changes come without any promise of further funding or investment to encourage more domestic staff.
The most recent estimates, from Skills for Care, showed that for 2023-24, there were 131,000 vacant posts across adult social care. The organisation has also estimated that the sector will need an additional 540,000 by 2040.
Lucinda Allen, policy fellow for the Health Foundation, told The Independent: “We need to remember that migrant workers have long played a really important role in sustaining the UK’s health and care sector.
“The sector is already in a very fragile state, and that’s partly due to the government’s successive governments taking a whack-a-mole approach to social care. The back and forth over the care worker visa is in part a consequence of the central government’s limited understanding, oversight and funding of the care system.”
“There are lots of issues at play here at the moment, with limited funding from central government, the increase to the national living wage and the increases to employer national insurance contributions.”
“So we’ve already heard providers saying that they may need to there will be an impact on their services, as a result of those decisions. and that obviously can impact people’s care, can leave people without care.”
One owner of a home care provider in the North West, Stella Shaw, told The Independent that overseas workers have been “absolutely vital to the success and the sustainability of my business.”
“Without them, I simply wouldn’t be able to meet the growing demand for you know, quality home care…Their contribution has enabled us to maintain continuity of care, after Brexit and COVID, and those sorts of major events, and you know, reduce hospital admissions.
“I worry so much…With these changes. I can’t honestly say that it isn’t going to negatively impact our ability to continue to deliver care. Our elderly population are going to be left vulnerable, and if everybody feels the same as I do, it leaves the question, who is going to provide the care?”
Responding to the news on Sunday Unison general secretary, Christina McAnea, Unison’s general secretary warned: “The NHS and the care sector would have collapsed long ago without the thousands of workers who’ve come to the UK from overseas.”
The Home Office was approached for comment.
