Brexit: Foreign care workers to be given special visas to move to UK to ease staffing crisis fears

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The King’s Fund think tank had pointed to 122,000 social care job vacancies – at a time when one in six staff are non-British – warning ministers not to let “international recruitment fall off a cliff”.

And Stephen Hammond, another former minister, said: “I was pleased we got the NHS exemptions in place last year, but the crisis has shown there would real problems with social care if we didn’t put something similar in place.”.

It is unclear what the threshold will now be for care workers, but – with even senior staff earning under £20,000 – it will almost certainly have to be cut to make the special visa system effective.

“This announcement appears to be welcome recognition that the social care sector, as well as the NHS, is heavily reliant on overseas workers to care for older and vulnerable people in need of support,” she said.

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