How frontline health workers have to fight to stay in the UK

Ministers’ unwillingness to expand free visa extensions is a demonstration of the different value it places on ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled’ workers, writes May Bulman

Many care workers have been excluded from the visa extension scheme (SWNS)

When Matt Hancock announced in April that care workers were to receive a green badge to offer them the same recognition as is enjoyed by those working for the NHS, the government might have thought its job at appearing to appreciate the care sector as much as the NHS was done. Referring to a lapel pin with the word “CARE” on it, the health secretary claimed it was a “badge of honour” to allow social care staff to “proudly and publicly identify themselves, just like NHS staff do with that famous blue and white logo”.

In reality, two months has passed and care workers feel far from on equal footing with people working in the NHS. Take a look at immigration policy. The bereavement scheme offering indefinite leave to remain to the families of workers who die as a result of contracting coronavirus was only extended to all health and care workers after intense public pressure, as was the decision to drop the NHS surcharge. More concerning, care workers are still excluded from the government’s offer of free automatic visa extensions to health workers, despite facing the brunt of the crisis.

It is important to not hear that this is not just an issue of the care sector being inadvertently sidelined, it is a demonstration of the different value the government places on the so-called “skilled” compared with the so-called “unskilled” worker. As well as care workers, nursing assistants, hospital porters and hospital cleaners – all of whom are exposed to the risk of coronavirus at work and whose work is essential to fighting the pandemic – have been excluded from the visa extension scheme.

Take Arun Kumar, a nursing assistant at Bart’s hospital who is required to roll Covid patients over every few hours, and has been vomited on while doing so. Or Nana, who works in a dementia ward and was early on in the pandemic caring for Covid positive patients without PPE. They are two examples of the many health workers who are struggling to save up thousands of pounds to continue their stay in the UK, all the while putting their heart and soul into the crucial work they are doing.

Cross-party MPs made their disapproval of this disparity clear in a report published by the Home Affairs Select Committee on Monday, which argued that making the lowest paid workers pay thousands of pounds during the crisis when they are helping and caring for everyone else was “unfair and wrong”, and called on ministers to ensure all measures of support for health workers applied to all frontline staff equally, irrespective of grade or job title.

But while ministers were quick to U-turn following anger over the bereavement scheme and the NHS surcharge, they are proving less willing to budge on visa extensions. The question is whether this unwillingness to show these workers that they are valued and ensure they aren’t priced out of living in Britain will ultimately lead to gaping holes in the health and care systems at a time when we need them most.