Immigration White Paper - comment from the Lincolnshire Care Association

The following statement can be attributed to Melanie Weatherley MBE, Chair of the Lincolnshire Care Association:

Today the Prime Minister has announced a tightening up of immigration rules, including proposals to reduce the number of social care workers recruited from overseas.

In Lincolnshire we are especially aware of the sensitivities around this issue, and we recognise the need to properly control immigration numbers. But we urge the government to implement changes in a carefully planned and managed way; if these changes are rushed through, there is a risk that social care services that are already under enormous stress will be forced to close, causing harm to the NHS and family carers.

We wish to challenge the notion that overseas carers are brought in as “cheap labour”. In Lincolnshire we are fortunate to have a great many international colleagues working in our care system who are highly skilled, and who have high levels of compassion and commitment. We sincerely hope that today’s announcements do not make them feel undervalued.

The Prime Minister says if you can work, you should work, and we support him in this. We would like to be able to employ more UK-based care workers, but at present the level of pay is unattractive following long years of under-investment in our sector.

To make a career in care more attractive to British workers, we need to recognise the importance of carers by giving them the right pay, conditions and training. Improving the pay of care workers will of course require an increase in funding via local authorities and the NHS.