ADASS responds to the government’s immigration white paper

Responding to the new measures to ban recruitment of adult social care workers through the care worker visa route in the immigration white paper, ADASS President Jess McGregor, said: 

“Thousands of older and disabled people rely on international workers for their care and support, who often take on positions which care companies struggle to fill.   

“Cutting off this source of new workers without a plan about how to replace them domestically will worry many older and disabled people, their families and employers. A shortage of care workers leads to a triple whammy of more reliance on agency staff who the person drawing on care won’t know and who the provider will need to pay much more for, more people – especially women – giving up paid work to care for their loved ones, and many people potentially missing out on care altogether.  

“We also recognise that there has been some abuse of the current visa system and some recruits from abroad have been unfairly treated and exploited.  This must be stopped. 

“Recruitment and retention of care workers is one of the longstanding major challenges in social care, and we need to dramatically increase the numbers of people starting a career in care to meet the needs of our growing population requiring more complex care than ever before.  

“To attract people with the right values and skills into this rewarding career, we are calling on the Government to a commit to a workforce strategy which provides proper pay, career progression and training, comparable with the NHS.  They must also outline how the fair pay agreement for care workers will be funded and timescales for implementation. ”