Car Crash in Care

The drop in overseas workers caused by UK’s lurch to the right on migration is a ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, says councillor Stuart Kelly.

The number of overseas nurses granted entry to the UK has fallen by 93% over three years. Just 1,777 overseas nurses were granted entry in 2025, compared with 26,100 in 2022.

Visas for workers in the caring personal service occupations category fell from 107,847 workers in 2023 to just 3,178 in 2025, a 97% decline over two years as visa conditions have been systematically tightened.

The Royal College of Nursing’s chief nursing officer, said the profession faced “the worst of all worlds. At the current rate, the numbers of domestic nurses joining will nowhere near make up for the collapse in overseas nursing staff coming to the UK.”

Stuart agreed: “Ministers need to wake up. They continue to make the UK an unattractive destination, while doing too little to invest and grow the domestic workforce. No hospital wants a 93% drop in overseas nurses, at a time when 25,000 nursing vacancies remain unfilled. The unacceptable pressure being experienced in our hospitals is causing far too many nurses to quit.”

““The reason we need international recruits in the care sector is because no government has provided any solutions to getting a domestic work force for the people we support.  International recruits have been excellent in the roles they fill and helped keep the sector going.”

Stuart concluded “While we need to prioritise and train British workers for these roles an ideological opposition to controlled, legal migration is causing real herm now in our hospitals and care homes. Sadly, the government is so scared of the threat from right-wing Parties that they are copying their disastrous policies.”