Indian-origin undercover reporter claims exploitation of care workers in UK

Concerning levels of employee exploitation were found by a Kerala-based writer working undercover as a care assistant in a north-east England assisted living facility for the elderly. Many of the staff members were hired from abroad, including India.

According to Balakrishnan Balagopal’s report for the “BBC Panorama” investigation, which will air here on Monday night, nurses were forced into long-term contracts with a care facility that would penalise them financially if they attempted to quit their jobs, and carers were being charged thousands of pounds by an Indian recruitment agency.

Official figures for the previous year show that 140,000 visas were granted to foreign workers to come to the UK in order to fill staffing shortages in the health and care sector, with 39,000 of those visas going to individuals from India.

“As I delved deeper into the lives of overseas caregivers, I heard a narrative of exploitation, debt, separation from family, and the constant fear of making mistakes,” Balagopal said in a statement.

“The pursuit of a permanent visa became a tightrope walk, impacting the quality of care provided. The very individuals tasked with ensuring the happiness and well-being of residents found themselves entangled in a web of instability,” he added.

Employers must sponsor foreign nurses and care providers who are eligible for a skilled worker visa. They have the ability to change occupations in theory, but only for a short period of time, which can offer employers an unfair advantage over them.

The BBC’s “Care Workers Under Pressure” investigation was launched not long after the UK government’s independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) issued a warning last week about the abuse of the nation’s social care system in its annual report.

“Underfunding and consequential low pay contributes to the exploitation of workers in the social care sector. Migrants in the sector on the H&CW (Health & Care Worker) visa are even more susceptible to exploitation as their right to reside in the UK is directly linked to their employer, creating a power imbalance,” the MAC report notes.

It gave the government a number of recommendations on how to stop workers in the social care industry from being exploited.

“Government could consider greater support for migrants when they enter employment and when experiencing exploitation in the UK… such as creating a portal specifically for the care sector where vacancies that would allow migrants to switch employer are posted,” the MAC report added.

Additionally, in an effort to wean the industry away from an excessive reliance on low-paid migrant labour, MAC urged the government to guarantee greater salaries for the industry as a whole.

The Home Office declared earlier this month that starting in the new year, carers on such a visa are not permitted to bring any immediate family members as dependents. The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), the main representative body for doctors and nurses of Indian descent in the UK, has deemed the decision to be “extremely unfair”.

(With agency inputs)