The care sector will be at breaking point when free movement ends

The landmark Immigration Act has just received Royal Assent, which means that free movement will end at 11pm on 31 December.

Leaving the EU means that the UK must establish a new way of handling immigration and for the current administration, that means a new system based on ‘skill, salary level, and productivity’.

For many areas of the economy, ending free movement will be disastrous for international recruitment efforts. This is especially true for social care, which currently has around 112,000 vacancies, as most roles will not be able to meet the requirements of the new immigration system.

Firstly, roles in the social care sector will not be able to meet the required skills threshold but they are not low skilled. Our workforce needs many other skills that are not based on qualifications, such as empathy and compassion.

Secondly, they will not be able to meet the required salary level. Salaries in the sector do not operate on pay scales like the NHS, and due to chronic underfunding, the sector cannot compete with the healthcare sector.

Thirdly, the new Health and Care Visa will support recruitment into the NHS and some social care roles. However, as it still operates within the Skilled Worker Visa route many essential roles are excluded completely such as carers and support workers. By not including the wide range of health and social care roles in this route, it projects the idea that care workers are unskilled and less valuable to the economy.

Lastly, while the Migration Advisory Committee recommended adding senior social care workers to the Shortage Occupation List, the UK government did not accept this at this time. This would have been a large step in addressing the longer-term issues within social care by making it easier and simpler to recruit people from around the world into that essential role. The UK government has not taken these recommendations on board, citing the need to see how the post-Covid-19 labour market pans out and the impacts of the new immigration system. If the government feels that it is too early to determine which roles are in shortage, it would therefore also be too early to assume that the solution to the social care workforce crisis should be solely filled by UK nationals.

These factors combined will mean that it will be almost impossible to recruit international staff to the social care sector under a points-based system.

If worldwide recruitment is not an option, that means the sector needs to focus on increasing its domestic workforce supply.

The social care sector has been trying to accomplish just this for many years. And this was a struggle even before the end of free movement and the pressures of Covid-19 utterly changed how health and social care is provided in the UK.

The factors that make domestic recruitment into social care challenging are multi-faceted. The chronic underfunding of the system, increasing unmet need, and declining access to services have put pressure on both our people and the services they provide, contributing to the long-term social care crisis.

The UK government needs to fundamentally change the way it supports the social care system to recruit the staff it needs. If it is not going to enable international recruitment into the sector the same way it prioritizes recruitment into the NHS, then something needs to happen on both ends.

We will work towards trying to make the sector more attractive by capitalising on the public support generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. We need to harness this momentum as support for the sector has never been higher to grow a UK-born talent pipeline. 

Thousands of people have had to go through the heartache of furlough or redundancies in recent months. The social care sector always has its doors open to anyone who is willing to provide care to those who need it most. In these exceptional times, the sector is focused on being agile to support rapid and safe recruitment by speeding up the recruitment process, bringing in more temporary staff and volunteers, and promoting good recruitment practices throughout the pandemic.

But we cannot do this alone.

We need support from partners, including the UK government, if we are to not let this opportunity slip through our fingers.

To increase the domestic workforce, the UK government needs to prioritise secure funding and investment. In the short term, we need this to fund a system that is overworked and underpaid. In the long term, we need a sustained funding framework that will enable transformational change.

The UK government needs to put more effort into supporting new and current staff by emphasising registration and career development. Working in the social care system is a rewarding profession, and the qualifications and remuneration should reflect that.

We are facing an immediate problem at the start of 2021. The end of free movement, Brexit, winter pressures, and almost a year of responding to Covid-19 will test the limits of the system and push it to its breaking point. If the UK government doesn’t want a broken and beyond repair social care system, it needs to act now.

We are willing to put in the work to make the social care sector work for our people. But is the UK government willing to do the same?

Danny Mortimer is co-convenor of the Cavendish Coalition and chief executive of the NHS Confederation