Abolishing the care worker visa is a mistake

For years I worked as an NHS manager, seeing first-hand the consequences of Britain’s broken social care system spill over into hospitals. Elderly patients, who no longer required medical care, were frequently marooned on wards because there was no one to support them at home. Behind every delayed operation or jammed A&E corridor was the same bottleneck: a care sector too understaffed to function.

The government’s decision this week to abolish the care worker visa may please Labour strategists wary of Reform, but it’s incomplete. Ministers are killing off a flawed solution without putting anything in its place. The plan, set out in a white paper, is to move the UK away from dependency on overseas care workers by establishing Fair Pay Agreements – a form of collective bargaining intended to improve pay and conditions for British carers. It is meant to attract domestic workers back into the sector.

However, local councils will have to bear the financial burden. Many have already been pushed to the point of bankruptcy by social care costs. To keep costs sustainable, following the change, many care homes will undoubtedly now turn to the black market for labour to stay afloat.

The government has not got a serious plan to build a domestic workforce. There’s been no reckoning with how unattractive Brits find care work and no appetite for radical change, such as cutting university places or reshaping the labour market, that would make their plan feasible.

Yes, the care visa process was flawed. In the two years to December 2024, 470 care companies had their licences to sponsor workers revoked for serious compliance breaches. Migrant workers were recruited under false pretences and charged illegal fees. In some cases, they were dumped without work on arrival.