Care homes call for fast-track visas to stave off staffing crisis

FOREIGN care workers should have their visas fast-tracked before the looming deadline for mandatory Covid jabs causes a staffing crisis, the Home Secretary has been warned.

Priti Patel is being urged to help stem the impending “collapse” of the care sector by speeding up the immigration process that enables carers from abroad to live and work in the UK.

Last week The Daily Telegraph disclosed that care homes are racing to hire double-jabbed foreign workers to “plug the gap” of staff planning to quit ahead of the mandatory vaccination deadline.

Providers are now calling on the Home Office to stave off the collapse in staffing by fast-tracking sponsorship licence applications.

Geoff Butcher, chief executive of Blackadder Corporation Ltd, which owns residential homes for the elderly, said: “People are using the words ‘catastrophe’ and ‘sector collapse’. With the current immigration rules, sponsorship licences take around 16 weeks. We need to parachute in the highly-skilled migrants back to the UK.”

The Government has ordered all care home staff to receive their first dose of a Covid vaccine by Sep 16 so they are fully vaccinated by the time the regulations come into force on Nov 11.

Mr Butcher, who is responsible for 220 residents across six homes in the Midlands said the majority of foreign care workers come from India, Nigeria and the Philippines. “This is crunch time. The worst case scenario is that care homes will reduce their capacity, be decommissioned and quite a number of them will collapse,” he said.

Mr Butcher has increased staff wages by 10 per cent and offered “golden hellos” of £500 to new care assistants and up to £1,500 for nurses. However, he said “it’s had no effect at all”.

The National Care Association has also urged the Home Office to add all social care staff to the Shortage Occupation List (SOL). Senior care workers were added to the SOL in April but junior staff were not, meaning they are unlikely to gain entry to the UK under the points-based immigration system.

It has previously been estimated that the mandatory vaccination policy will result in about 40,000 care home staff – seven per cent – either quitting or being sacked.

A government spokesman said: “It is right that employers focus on domestic job seekers first… rather than turning to immigration as an alternative.”