Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of relaxing visa conditions for health workers from abroad to help support the NHS during any staff shortages.

The introduction of the Health and Care visa in August 2020 made it quicker and cheaper for regulated health and care professionals to secure their visa to work in the Health and Care sector. Furthermore, a number of Health and Care occupations, such as senior care workers, nurses and auxiliary nurses and assistants, feature on the Shortage Occupation List (SOL).

On 24 December, the Government announced it was accepting the Migration Advisory Committee’s (MAC) interim recommendation to add care workers to the SOL and making them eligible for the Health and Care Visa.

On 24 January the Government laid the necessary changes to the immigration rules which will come into force on 15 February. I refer my Honourable Friend to the Written Ministerial Statement of 24 January for further details.

The Government also introduced various COVID-19 concessions to minimise some of the pressures faced by the Health and Care sector in dealing with the pandemic, such as working across various sites and allowing people to work more than the normal 20 supplemental hours in such roles.