The United Kingdom (UK) Government has banned foreign Health and Care Workers from bringing dependants to the country.
The measure is part of the plan by the UK government to reduce migration into the country, with overseas care workers bringing an estimated 120,000 dependants to the UK last year.
This disclosure is contained in a post made by the UK Home Office on its official X (formerly Twitter) account on Monday, March 11, 2024..
The Home Office noted that the new measure would deliver the biggest-ever reduction in the country’s net migration with the British government saying that this was a way of reducing “unprecedented” and “unsustainable” levels of legal migration to the country.
Biggest ever migration cut
- The post reads, “From today, care workers entering the UK on Health and Care Worker visas can no longer bring dependants.
- “This is part of our plan to deliver the biggest ever cut in migration.”
It added,
- ‘’BANNED, overseas care workers from bringing dependants. 120,000 people who arrived last year would no longer be eligible under out new rules.’’
We will stop abuse of health, care visa
Home Secretary, James Cleverly, said his plan would result in 300,000 fewer people coming to the UK in the coming years.
Under plans set out by Cleverly, workers would need to earn at least £38,700 to obtain a visa, up from £26,200, while care workers would be barred from bringing in dependants from next April.
- He said, “The first of our five points will be to end the abuse of the care visa. We will stop overseas care workers from bringing family, dependants and we will require firms in England to be regulated by the Health Care Quality Commission in order for them to sponsor visas.
- “Approximately, £120,000 dependants accompanied £100,000 care workers in the year ending September 2023, but only 25% of the dependants are estimated to be in work, meaning that a significant number are joining public services rather than helping to grow the economy.
- “We recognise that healthcare workers do great work in our NHIS and health sector, but it’s also important that immigrants make a big enough financial contribution. Therefore, it will increase the annual immigration healthcare charge by 66% from £624 to £1035 to raise, on average, £1.3 billion for the health services of the country every year.
- “Second, we will stop immigration undercutting the salary of British workers. We will increase skilled workers’ earning threshold by a third to £38,000 from next spring in line with the medium, full-term wage for those kinds of jobs.
- “Those coming on social and health visas will be exempt, so we will continue to bring healthcare workers.”
