The Home Secretary - Yvette Cooper - announced on Sunday (11 May 2025) that it is "time to end care worker recruitment from abroad". This was followed by the launch today by the Prime Minister of a Government White Paper on immigration

The Home secretary stated that rules will change this year - requiring firms to hire British nationals or extend visas of overseas workers already in the country.

I think all of us would agree that recruiting from within the UK workforce is a better and cheaper solution but as many of our members know too well, that is not as easy as politiicians seem to think.

It already looks like 2025 is turning out to be Social Care's 'Annus Horribilis' with both inflation busting increases in National Minuum Wage and Employers National Insurance Contributions, removing the option to recruit from overseas when there is not a large local pool to recruit from, feels like another twist of the knife

As always the devil is in the detail and we'll let you know more as infomation becomes available.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper