Care leaders have warned that Home Office proposals to crack down on immigration could deepen the workforce crisis in the sector.

The warning followed an FT report revealing new Home Secretary James Cleverly was considering a number of measures as immigration to the UK was set to hit record levels.

Options include limiting the number of dependents accompanying care workers and raising the raising the annual salary threshold for the £26,200 skilled workers scheme to above £30,000 and the minimum level of £20,960 for care workers for health and care visas.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, told Caring Times: “Unless the government significantly increases the amounts of money available to pay staff, the only outcome of increasing the Shortage Occupation List minimum salary will be fewer people working in the care sector, and the chronic staff shortages that we are currently facing will get worse. The impact of this will be that citizens will not get vital care services, and more people will go into crisis and push the NHS towards meltdown.”

Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, warned it would be an “absolute disaster” if overseas recruitment were to be hampered.

“This would be the worst possible time to make it harder for social care providers to recruit from overseas,” he said.

“Restricting dependents would undoubtedly put many people off from coming to our country and given the current financial hardships in social care, raising the salary threshold would mean many posts in the sector would not be eligible.”

Nadra Ahmed, chair of the National Care Association, said there to be some strategic thinking around the proposals, adding: “The proposals highlighted could have an impact on those who chose this route to come to work in the UK, for legitimate reasons, if there are restrictions on bringing their spouse and children with them; indeed, this may be a reason not to seek employment under that visa.

“The increase in the threshold will unfairly impact on the SME providers as this route is used only when a domestic option has been exhausted. It also begs the question how we can assume that paying a domestic workforce less than those recruited from overseas will help increase the value of the role to any potential employee thinking about joining the sector.”

A new report by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) in October recommended care workers and senior care workers remain on the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) while also expressing concerns over exploitation of overseas workers.

Analysis by Skills for Care in September revealed overseas recruitment played a key role in returning the adult social care workforce to growth in 2022-23 after numbers fell in the previous year.

Around 70,000 people recruited from abroad between April 2022 and March 2023, including 58,000 skilled worker visas after adult social care was added to the Shortage Occupation List in February 2022.