Health and Adult Social Care play a critical role in providing support and care for adults, but they often face significant staffing challenges that can impact the quality of care.

These challenges include staff shortages due to low salaries, candidates without much experience or qualifications, and struggles with retention due to high staff turnover in many care homes. 

One approach has been the reliance on using temping agency staff, however, these tend to be more expensive and, in some cases, can lack the full commitment to a specific establishment. 

A blended approach where staff are employed directly by the care establishment and agency staff are used for cover reduces costs and can help face the above challenges. Employing non-British citizens hugely increases the pool of potential talent available and employing from a global workforce also improves diversity, equity and inclusion within an establishment. 

There are many differences between a Health and Care Visa for care staff and the standard Skilled Worker Visa applications. These include different salary requirements, removal of the Immigration Health Surcharge and the need for an establishment to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to apply for a Sponsor Licence. Applicants will also need to demonstrate their qualifications for certain roles. One further difference (since 11/04/2024) is that Overseas Care Workers (SOC 6135) and Senior Care Workers (SOC 6136) are now unable to bring dependents to the UK.

Sponsor Licence

To employ non-citizens the care organisation needs a Skilled Worker Sponsor Licence. Passportia can assess whether a care organisation qualifies and prepare the application at a very competitive fee. A Sponsor Licence is a strategic investment for the future, a form of insurance for ensuring operational stability and a means of enhancing the level of care provided to residents. 

In some cases, an existing sponsor licence in a company group or co-owned business can be extended to other care homes in the group. Ideally, one licence covers all homes.

Compliance and SMS Management

Passportia can also manage your Sponsor Management System (SMS) to ensure that it is kept up to date and notified of staff changes.

Due to news stories of cases of exploitation, care homes may be subject to increased Home Office compliance visits. Passportia can conduct ongoing compliance audits to ensure that the sponsored staff are managed in a way that is compliant with the rules. This is very important as responsibility does not stop once a visa is issued.

Passportia can also manage your Sponsor Management System (SMS) to ensure that it is kept up to date and notified of staff or other relevant changes.

What can Passportia do for your visas?

There are many different ‘moving parts’ when considering international recruitment. Passportia will support and work with you to ensure the Sponsorship and Visa application process is compliant and completed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Before a job listing is published, Passportia can assess the eligibility of a proposed job and compute the minimum salary required. Automated justification letters and reports are issued to demonstrate a high level of due diligence which is often overlooked but is essential should a compliance check be conducted. 

For a potential applicant for a particular job, Passportia can assess eligibility for a Skilled Worker Visa or further Leave to Remain. Detailed reports are also issued explaining eligibility, costs and timings for a proposed period of sponsorship. 

For the candidate chosen, Passportia can then prepare and submit the application for the Certificate of Sponsorship and visa (entry clearance) or further Leave to Remain, filling in all the Home Office UKVI forms.

Our immigration platform, AORA, collects data and document scans from staff and job applicants using intelligent, smartphone-friendly, white-labelled questionnaires. This approach ensures your chosen applicant has a great initial user experience with the UKVI application process as their first step in securing a new opportunity in the UK. 

Passportia is powered by AORA Mobility

Passportia, an OISC-regulated company, uses the AORA Mobility platform to deliver increased time savings and higher levels of data consistency through the application of AI and process automation to Work Visa cases. Using AORA requires less staff time and reduces repetitive manual tasks, in many cases, users can save up to 75% of their time when compared to traditional manual processing.

Because of this increased efficiency, Passportia can offer very competitive prices for these services compared to traditional immigration consultancies and lawyers as clients are not being charged for practitioners' time to perform these tasks manually. 

AORA is also available for organisations to use directly. By leveraging AORA, your in-house teams can also work more effectively, freeing their time to focus on other value-added tasks. Equally, if you prefer to outsource this process, you can still benefit from greatly reduced costs when compared to traditional immigration consultancy services.

 

Are you currently outsourcing skilled worker visas? Calculate how much you could save by using Passportia:  AORA ROI Calculator

If you don’t already have a sponsor licence, Passportia can make an assessment of eligibility and make the application.

Interested in finding out more? Here’s a video which explains how easily and efficiently a Skilled Worker case is completed when using AORA:

cartoon computer screen

If you’re interested in exploring how a Skilled Worker Sponsor Licence could benefit your care sector organisation, then please get in touch with our experts today for a consultation.

 

PASSPORTIA IS

  • A UK immigration & citizenship law specialist
  • Powered by AORA technology
  • Fast, flexible, precise

Nigel
Cleur

Business Development Manager

Thank you so much for handling my application for U.K citizenship so efficiently and seamlessly. I certainly wish to commend you and all at Passportia, who have been most obliging, helpful and thoroughly professional in dealing with this matter.

P.R. - Johannesburg, South Africa