Last Updated on September 8, 2016

A new coalition of social care and health representatives, the Cavendish Coalition, has been created to ensure that sufficient numbers of workers are available following Britain’s exit from the EU. The Coalition aims to assist those leading Brexit negotiations with expert knowledge of issues affecting the social care and health sector.

The Coalition is committed to securing the workforce needed to uphold quality in health and social care through:

• Supporting the economic as well as social health of the communities that it works with, through the creation of opportunities for training and employment.
• Promoting employment policy and practice, which ensures that the UK is still able to attract essential skills from Europe and internationally to work in health and social care.
• Seeking assurance for those currently working in the UK by advocating for the right of the current health and social care workforce who come from the European Economic Area (EEA) to stay here.

The Cavendish Coalition consists of 29 health and social care representative bodies, including UKHCA. UKHCA has joined the Coalition because it believes that non-British nationals from the EU and the rest of the world, make a major contribution to the care and health workforce.

According to UKHCA’s figures, there are around 329,000 people employed as homecare workers in England. The Association estimates that 6.4% of the homecare workforce is made up of non-British EEA nationals. A further 9.3% of the workforce, are nationals from outside the EU. Headcount data for homecare workers, from the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care, suggests that the impact of losing these workers would be felt most acutely in London and the South East, and the South West of England.

UKHCA’s Policy Director, Colin Angel, said, 'Workers from the EU and beyond bring a wealth of talent and experience to homecare services. Government has to assess the implications of Brexit for social care services and make decisions that ensure a sufficiently large and skilled workforce.

'Social care employers need reassurance that they can retain existing workers and can recruit with absolute confidence.'