In the United Kingdom, the New Conservatives group on the Tory Right has called on ministers to end temporary visa schemes for care workers as part of an effort to reduce net migration before the presidential election next year.
The group, which is reported to be supported by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, stated that the government could no longer handle the amount of migrants coming into the country on a daily basis.
According to the most recent figures, 1.279 million more people have entered the UK than have left in the last two years.
This has put a lot of pressure on lodging and amenities in the last month, creating concerns among Britons.
In a recent interview, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that net migration levels are certainly “too high” after one of his senior colleagues stated that a record number of arrivals was “unacceptable” last year.According to revised estimates released on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics, net migration into the UK peaked at 745,000 in 2022, a record high.
Despite a Conservative Party 2019 campaign vow to reduce overall numbers, the data shows that migration levels are three times higher than before Brexit.
The National Health Service Trusts also warned on Friday that it was no longer feasible to provide social care with visa workers.
The UK’s migration agency, the Home Office, announced on Thursday that 143,990 health and care worker visas were awarded in the fiscal year ending September 2023.
This is more than quadruple the 61,274 for the fiscal year ending September 20, 2022.
According to the Home Office, the top three nations on these visas are Indians, Nigerians, and Zimbabweans.
Nigeria has the highest percentage growth, trailing only Zimbabwe (169%) and India (76%).
Nigeria increased by 329 percent in terms of dependents awarded health and care work visas, from 10,533 to 45,203.
The increased number of healthcare workers migrating to the UK is due to the country’s inexpensive and easy entry migration circumstances, while the country faces a lack of healthcare workers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to statistics, the number of Nigerian-trained doctors practicing in the UK increased to 11,001 as of March 2023.
According to data, this has resulted in an unprecedented increase in non-EU immigration to the UK, primarily from migrants arriving for employment on health and care visas.
According to statistics, health and care work visas were the most popular form of work visa on which dependents came to the UK, and are driving the growth in immigration of people on work-dependent visas.
The 143,990 statistic only applies to main visa applicants and does not include dependants, which can range from two per person to nine, or even ten, if extended family members are included.
On a health and care worker visa, medical professionals can travel to or stay in the UK to do an approved job with the NHS, an NHS supplier, or in adult social care under the temporary visa scheme.
Visas are valid for up to five years and can be extended, and partners and children can seek to join as the primary applicant’s “dependents.”
‘UK’s NHS understaffed’
Meanwhile, according to a story in the UK newspaper The Standard, NHS Providers, which represents trusts in England, the “understaffed health and social care system relies on the contribution of highly valued staff from overseas to keep it going.”
They cautioned that this is insufficient, stating that the domestic workforce needs to be “turbo-boosted” in order to build a “sustainable, diverse, and skilled workforce for the future.”
Dr Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, believes that better investment in the industry and higher remuneration for staff are the long-term solutions to care workforce shortages, rather than continuing to rely on workers from overseas.
She said, “In the long run, the solution to the problems in care is not necessarily extremely high levels of care worker migration permanently, the solution is likely to involve funding the care sector so that people in the UK are willing to do the jobs.
“And I think part of the challenge the government faces is that people are coming into care and it’s really helping care employers and they’re able to provide care that they weren’t able to provide a couple of years ago and that’s having a benefit in the short run.
“But in the long run, solving the problem and actually addressing the challenge of recruitment in the care sector is really expensive, because it involves paying people enough to persuade them to do the job,” she said.
NHS Providers chief executive, Sir Julian Hartley, on his part, said, “Our understaffed health and social care system relies on the contribution of highly valued staff from overseas to keep it going. But this isn’t sustainable.
“With more than 125,000 vacancies across the NHS in England and around 150,000 in social care, we can’t keep relying on international recruitment to plug these huge gaps.”
