Recommendation 19

We highlighted that expanding the Skilled Worker visa route had helped the social care sector to reduce vacancy rates to around 131,000. We were concerned that the Home Office had now turned the tap off and asked what analysis it had undertaken on the impact of the Spring 2024 changes to tighten entry requirements. These changes, and the Home Office’s increased focus on compliance, saw the number of Health and Care Worker visa applications for main applicants reduce significantly in 2024, with just 8,000 applications in April to June 2024 compared to 41,500 in the same period in 2023. The Home Office said that it was important to have a long-term sectoral workforce strategy that gets the balance right between using the domestic labour market and migration where it is needed.47 It needs to liaise with DHSC to understand the extent to which domestic workforce plans, are addressing skills shortages.