Government leaves social care defenceless while declaring victory on migration

Reacting to yesterday’s immigration statistics, Care England warns that the figures reveal the human cost of chasing political headlines. A sector in workforce crisis, stripped of its overseas recruitment lifeline, and let down by a Fair Pay Agreement that the government’s own tax policy is silently undermining.

The Home Office’s Immigration System Statistics for the year ending March 2026 show that skilled work visas issued to care workers in caring personal service occupations have collapsed by 82% since December 2023, from 107,772 to just 1,397. The government’s response has been to celebrate.

Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England, responded:

“The Prime Minister says he has restored control. But what control looks like to a manager of a care service desperately trying to fill shifts is chaos. The Home Secretary says she welcomes those who contribute to this country. Care workers contribute every single day, in every town and city in England, and we have just slammed the door in their faces. Yesterday’s figures are not a triumph; they are a warning. The price is being paid by older and disabled people waiting for care that can’t be delivered, and by NHS hospitals filling with patients who are ready to leave but have nowhere to go. Those are the consequences of these decisions. Shutting the door on overseas care workers while the Fair Pay Agreement remains unfunded in any meaningful sense is not a plan. It is a gamble with the lives of the most vulnerable people in our society.”