Plans to ease Norfolk's growing crisis in social care by recruiting migrant workers from overseas can be revealed today.
Care organisations are looking to bring in staff from countries including India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines to fill vacancies in the county.
The news comes just days after home secretary Suella Braverman called for lower legal migration to the UK, encouraging employers to do more to recruit local workers and make Britain “less dependent on low-skilled foreign labour”.
But care bosses say that bringing in migrants is essential to help address what they describe as "unprecedented, critical levels" of staff shortages in Norfolk.
The situation has contributed to the county having some of the lowest standards of care in the country, with a high proportion of firms rated 'inadequate' or 'requiring improvement'.
The new overseas recruitment drive has emerged in a report being discussed by councillors today.
It involves Norfolk County Council and the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System - which oversees the sector - searching for staff from countries on the government's 'green list' of states where it can recruit care workers.
Those countries include India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
The scheme comes at a time of heightened political debate over immigration, with reports of a split in prime minister Rishi Sunak's cabinet over the issue.
Some members – including chancellor Jeremy Hunt – are reportedly keener than others to stress the benefits of migration for economic growth.
But home secretary Ms Braverman, speaking at the National Conservatism Conference earlier this week, said while preventing "illegal migration" in the Channel is the government’s priority, they “must not lose sight of the importance of controlling legal migration as well".
She told the audience: "We need to get overall immigration numbers down. And we mustn’t forget how to do things for ourselves."
Steve Dorrington, who runs care homes in Dereham, Watton and Wells, has invested £100,000 in plugging staffing gaps with overseas workers.
He has looked to India to recruit, bringing in 30 care workers, having struggled to recruit locally.
Mr Dorrington said: "I think most homes are employing people from India and the Philippines now.
"India exports something like 29,000 nurses and doctors to the UK each year and the health and care sector has come to rely on them."
The county council has 64 vacancies across its own 640-strong adult social care department, including social worker roles and occupational therapists.
To try to plug those gaps it has been offering international recruits pre-loaded bank cards with £1,000 credit, so they can buy food and other essentials while they wait for UK bank accounts to be set up.
Welcome payments of £2,000 for experienced social workers and occupational therapists to work for County Hall are also being offered.
There are some 27,000 jobs in adult social care in Norfolk, of which about 78pc are in private homes and providers. The vacancy rate is about 9pc - some 2,300 vacancies.
Alison Thomas, Norfolk County Council cabinet member for adult social services, said: "We have a three-pronged strategy to create and retain a stable cohort of adult social care workers in Norfolk.
"We train our own social workers through our own UK-based schemes including our social work apprenticeship, graduate trainee scheme, newly-qualified social worker programme and return to practice scheme.
"We also work hard to offer the best working environment possible where people feel supported and valued and thirdly we use our own in-house programme for international recruitment.
"We have been successful in securing £2.4m from the government’s international recruitment fund to provide a support model across the eastern region to help care providers safely undertake international recruitment and provide support to recruits to start work.
"We are also working with colleagues from NHS Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board as part of their international recruitment hub to help recruit social care workers and nurses in Norfolk.
"Despite our best efforts we fully appreciate the ongoing challenge and we are always looking at different and innovative ways to try and encourage more people to work in adult services."
The county's rural nature, housing issues, poor infrastructure and the impact of Brexit and Covid have all contributed to the shortage, according to the council, with people able to earn more working in other sectors than care.
ANALYSIS: THE SOLUTION COULD BE EXPENSIVE
The workforce shortage within social care has reached a "critical" level, according to care chiefs at Norfolk County Council - and that should alarm every single one of us.
Our social care system has been creaking for years. The pandemic had a huge impact on the sector, when a number of providers closed their doors - and never reopened them.
It is a system where recruiting social workers continues to be a battle. James Bullion, the council's director of adult social care, has regularly made the point that they need to be paid more.
Care work is crucial. In a country like ours, with an ageing population which is living for longer, the chances of us needing more support when we get older is increasing.
This sort of work can be hugely rewarding and those who do it as careers deserve our thanks.
But when somebody can earn the same or more by working in Tesco, without the bodily fluids and the pressures of being responsible (and potentially culpable if something goes wrong) for somebody's care, it is little wonder there are difficulties finding people to do the jobs.
To try to plug those gaps, council bosses have been offering 'golden hellos' and preloaded bank cards for people they recruit from overseas.
And they are looking into a targeted recruitment campaign to attract more care workers from countries such as India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Yet this comes at the same time as national politicians are split over the merits of legal immigration. We hear much rhetoric about how we should be 'growing our own' workforce, rather than looking abroad.
But, until the government grabs the bull by the horns and does something to fix the care sector in this country, such words seem rather hollow when it comes to how we care for the most vulnerable in our county.
It is not good enough for our elected leaders to keep passing the buck for funding adult social care on to all of us, via the council tax increases by Norfolk County Council which are ring-fenced for adult social care.
A proper strategy to fund adult social care - and who will work to do it - is essential.
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