Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure adequate staffing levels in the social care sector after the transition period.

It is the Government’s ambition to recruit more people into social care to meet the future needs of society. In the short term, in order to attract people into social care now, we launched a new national recruitment campaign, ‘Care for others; Make a difference’, which ran across broadcast, digital and social media. We have also launched a new online platform to fast-track recruitment into the adult social care sector, which sits alongside the many local initiatives that have been put in place to recruit staff.

The new Health and Care visa will make it cheaper, quicker and easier for eligible social care professionals such as social workers, occupational therapists and nurses from around the world come to work the United Kingdom. In addition, all social care workers will now be permanently exempt from paying the Immigration Health Surcharge.