Visa crackdown leaves UK 100,000 care workers short

Crisis will only worsen with new rule on minimum earnings

- REBECCA THOMAS

A government crackdown on visas for overseas workers could put overstretched care homes under threat of closure, with tens of thousands fewer staff coming to the UK, The Independent can reveal.

Applications for Britain’s health and care worker visa are at a record low after care workers were prevented from bringing children and other dependants with them in a bid to curb climbing migration numbers.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, when the new rules came in, there were 129,000 applicants, but that plummeted to just 26,000 in the year to March 2025, according to government figures. The revelation comes as care homes struggle to retain staff, with more than 100,000 vacancies across England last year, a rate of 8 per cent and three times the national average.

Age UK warned that overseas recruits were “keeping many services afloat” and some care homes could be forced to shut if they could not find alternatives, piling more pressure on NHS hospitals.

And the crisis looks set to get even worse as new rules, brought in by the Labour government in March, mean overseas workers will only get a visa if they earn over £25,000 a year. This will impact healthcare assistants, who support nurses by carrying out clinical tasks such as blood tests, 13 per cent of whom are from overseas.

Vicky Haines, managing director of care home provider Kingsway Care, accused the government of “making recruitment decisions they are unqualified to do” and warned that without major reforms, the sector will continue to “buckle under pressure”.