Health and social care secretary Victoria Atkins has said care providers are “broadly relaxed” about changes to eligibility for health and visa care visas announced by the government.

Home secretary James Cleverly announced to the Commons earlier this month that the government is to stop overseas care workers from bringing family dependants to the UK as part of a five-point plan designed to curb immigration.

Cleverly also announced an increase in the salary threshold for overseas by a third to £38,700 from spring 2024. People on health and social care visas will be exempt from the threshold howev

During questioning by the Health and Social Care Committee this week, Atkins said: “We have got to a very sensible place where we are ensuring that we have exemptions in relations to salary threshold … we wanted to understand and reflect the fact that social care remains sadly a career that remains among the lowest paid. We have that very sensible carve out.

“But in terms of dependents we got to a situation where we have more people coming over as dependants than people who are actually working on visas. We have to address that and I think we have got to a very sensible place and indeed my understanding from [care minister] Ms Whateley’s conversations with the social care sector is that they understand and they are broadly relaxed about this.”

When asked if the government had carried out an impact assessment on the changes, Atkins replied: “We are confident that we will still be able to maintain the level of interest internationally for care workers.”

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Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, told Caring Times: “The statement made by the secretary of state that the sector was “broadly relaxed” about the changes to the migration system were not representative of where the care sector is on this issue.

“I also do not know how the secretary of state can make this comment, when neither she nor her officials had had any contact with the sector about this issue and there was no consultation about the changes.”

Nadra Ahmed, chair of the National Care Association, told us: “Firstly, it is important to note that the workforce shortages in our sector are not of our making and neither is the ‘low’ wages referred to by the SoS. This is the deliberate underinvestment in the sector due to a complete lack of understanding of the value and the contribution made by our care professionals and the sector, as a whole to the health economy. Perhaps an early meeting with social care representatives will assist the SoS to fully grasp the value. The billions of pounds of shortfall in social care may be a clue. 

“As a sector we are not ‘relaxed’ about the dependency rule, quite the opposite! We value our professionals and understand why they would want the love and support from dependents whilst undertaking such a stressful role which our domestic workforce shies away from! Once again, we have a stark disparity between health and social care professionals and then excuses for that disparity.  If this system had been properly set up, we would not have rogue agencies, with no track record of social care, being allowed to apply for the visas in the numbers they did and thereby abusing the system. 

“Once again, caused by government and social care pays the price. Nothing changes sadly.”

ICG chair Mike Padgham said: “This comment beggars belief and illustrates how little the government understands the current situation in social care.

“To say we are ‘broadly relaxed’ could not be further from the truth – the sector has been plunged further into crisis by these latest measures.

“The banning of dependents will deter many people from coming to work for social care when we have 152,000 vacancies and desperately need overseas staff to keep delivering care to older and vulnerable adults who rely upon us on a daily basis.

“The government is taking draconian and knee-jerk actions to cut overseas workers but failing to do anything to help us recruit more from this country.

“At the moment many providers would not be able to fill their shifts without their overseas staff, who we should be welcoming with open arms.

“Instead, the government is putting measures in place to reduce numbers without having an alternative in place to provide us with the staff we need.”

Vishen Ramkisson, chief executive of AgeCare, said: “AgeCare is deeply concerned about the negative impact these changes will potentially have on retaining the dedicated and hardworking overseas staff we have recruited in 2023. The sector continues to struggle to attract applicants in the UK, and high staff turnover remains an ongoing problem, therefore these proposals will certainly have a negative impact on our ability to attract the very best of talent from overseas.”