Health & Care Worker Visa

Amidst the current critical shortage of workers in the UK, particularly in the healthcare industry, sponsorship should play an even more vital role in your workforce strategy.  By obtaining your sponsor licence, you can tap into this extensive talent pool from both overseas and within the UK. This solution not only helps stabilise your workforce and overcome hiring challenges, but also can lead to financial savings through government funding.  Furthermore, it opens up incredible growth prospects for businesses to expand and reach unprecedented heights of success.

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The Borderless platform has been designed from scratch specifically for care providers. It is a flexible platform allowing employers to just use the parts which they need. Whether it’s navigating sponsor licence applications, streamlining recruitment efforts, efficiently running the immigration process, fully managing their Sponsor Management System, or ensuring compliance with the Home Office, Borderless offers a bespoke, end-to-end solution.

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Borderless means operational efficiency, simplifying the intricate processes involved in sponsoring workers, managing immigration, and ensuring compliance. By streamlining each step of the journey, Borderless saves businesses and individuals time, money and resources. This freedom allows care providers to focus on providing exceptional care and support, unencumbered by red tape.

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The Benefits of the Visa – Overseas Workers

For these successful candidates, they are permitted to work within the UK for up to five years. After this point, they can apply to extend their visa, and provided they remain eligible, they can renew their visa continuously. 

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Another route for Health and Care visa holders is to apply for UK indefinite leave to remain after five years, when they can become eligible to apply for after this time period. With this status, overseas workers are no longer subject to the legislations of UK immigration control, and they are no longer bound by the visa sponsorship rules. As a result, they can change their career path and their employer without the requirement of applying for additional visas.

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The Requirements for a Health and Care Worker Visa

In order for an overseas worker to qualify for this visa, they must meet the following criteria:

• Aged 18 or over
• Qualified doctor, nurse, health professional or adult social care professional
• Working, or will work in an eligible health or social care job, which falls within the list of approved occupations
• Working, or will work for a UK health and care sector employer, approved by the Home Office
• Valid ‘certificate of sponsorship’ from employer
• Competent in the English language to at least CEFR Level B1 (equivalent to IELTS 4.0)
• Will be paid the minimum salary or the ‘going rate’ for the type of work you will be doing (the highest of the two)
• Not reliant on public funds – will have money to sustain self
• Criminal record certificate provided (if working with vulnerable people)
• Valid TB certificate provided (if from a listed country of risk)

The Standard Occupational Classification Codes - Health & Care Worker Visa

This visa is open to international candidates applying under the skilled worker route for entry clearance, who have accepted a job offer in one of the occupations listed below. This list consists of Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Codes. 

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In order to determine if your occupation is on the list of eligible roles, the overseas worker must obtain the four-digit occupation code – for those who have received a job offer prior to this, they should contact their employer and ask for the occupation code. Please note this list of eligible occupations is always subject to change:

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Having the role listed within the list of SOC categories is the first step. In order to qualify for the visa, the overseas applicant needs to have a job offer from a licenced sponsor. The sponsoring company needs to be one of the following:

• An NHS body or trust
• A medical services provider to the NHS
• An organisation providing adult social care

This can also include:

• One of several other medical and/or social care organisations listed above

This could be a candidate employed by, or registered with one of the following councils/organisations:

• General Chiropractic Council
• General Dental Council
• General Medical Council
• General Optical Council
• General Osteopathic Council
• General Pharmaceutical Council
• Health and Care Professions Council
• Northern Ireland Social Care Council
• Nursing and Midwifery Council
• Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland
• Scottish Social Services Council
• Social Care Wales

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Applying for the Health and Care Worker Visa

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It is important to consider the complexity of this process and how it may delay the overall progress of sponsoring skilled workers from overseas if it isn’t handled by a professional.  At Borderless our technology platform and team of experts will guide you through each stage of the sponsor licence to ensure an easy and simple application process. 

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In order to apply for the Health and Care Worker visa, the overseas worker needs to be assigned a COS (certificate of sponsorship) by their UK sponsor. This is a mandatory requirement for visa applications in the Worker and Temporary Worker categories. It is a unique reference number which is used to apply online on the Home Office website. 

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Once the relevant information has been completed, the next step of the application is to pay a fee. At this stage, the mandatory supporting documents will be expected by the Home Office. Once the application has been received by the Home Office, they will then assess the provided information and supporting documentation. During this stage, either of the following may occur:

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• You will be offered to book a biometrics appointment, if it isn’t possible to reuse any biometrics supplied with prior application(s)
• You will be advised on how to enable biometrics through the use of an ID app