Applications for UK Visas for Health and Care Workers Fall by 81% -Report

Between April and July 2024, there was an 81% fall in the number of applications for health and care worker visas when compared to the same period in 2023.

An official report from the UK Home Office states that the number of visa applications decreased from 18,300 in August 2023 to 2,900 in July 2024.

10,800 applications were submitted between April and July of 2024, an 81% drop from the same time in 2023.

The dramatic decrease comes after the Conservative administration changed the rules, making it illegal for the majority of foreign students as well as health and social care professionals to bring their families to the UK.

Dependant applications fell to 5,100 by July 2024 from a peak of 23,300 in August 2023. Between April and July 2024, 22,200 applications were submitted, a 71% drop from the prior year.

Applications for skilled worker visas rose to 10,100 in April 2024 but leveled down at 6,000 by July of the same year. Between April and July of 2024, 28,600 applications were received, a 23% rise over 2023.

There were 156,800 applications for study visas between January and July 2024—a 16% drop from the same period the year before. Dependant applications fell by 81% as a result of the new limitations.

According to BBC reports, the Home Office is still dedicated to helping the domestic workers grow and receive training in order to address severe skill shortages, especially in the health and social care sectors.

This strategy seeks to lessen the UK’s need on foreign labor while fostering long-term workforce development.

“Ensure we train up our homegrown workforce and address the skills shortage,” was what we would do.

Immigration has “many benefits to the UK, but it must be controlled and delivered through a fair system,” according to a department official.

The National Care Association’s executive co-chairman, Nadra Ahmed, told the BBC that some employees in the field have started to go to nations with “a less hostile environment around immigration” or return home.

“If we had a domestic workforce willing to work then we wouldn’t need these international recruits.”

In addition, Ahmed said that it would “take a few years” to develop a domestic labor force and issued a warning that job openings in the industry would become unmanageable.

As part of its effort to curb immigration, the government of the United Kingdom (UK) has prohibited foreign health and care professionals from bringing their dependents into the nation. As of last year, it is estimated that 120,000 international care workers brought their dependents to the UK.

The British government stated that this was a means of reducing “unprecedented” and “unsustainable” levels of legal migration to the country, and the Home Office underlined that the new approach would bring the biggest-ever fall in the nation’s net migration.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, predicted that his proposal will lead to 300,000 fewer immigration to the UK in the upcoming years.