Creative Support Welcomes Changes to Citizenship Proposals for Care Staff

Yesterday, Monday, 2nd November, it was announced that the Government has made changes to proposals regarding citizenship rules for care workers.

The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced that care workers will be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain after five years, rather than the original proposal of 10 to 15 years.

This will allow an estimated 280,000 care workers to apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK after five years. The rule applies to people who arrived in the UK before May 2025.

Creative Support wholeheartedly welcomes this announcement. The original proposal would have been unfair and disruptive to people who relocated to the UK at a time when the immigration rules stated that people could apply for citizenship after five years. Increasing this wait time to 10 or 15 years would have been unjust.

15% of our valued workforce is sponsored. We could not deliver our services across England without the hard work and dedication of all our employees.

We are proud that many of our sponsored staff have gone on to achieve promotion by progressing from Support Worker to Senior Support Worker, Support Coordinator or Team Leader.

It is important that the skilled contributions of care and support workers are recognised more widely by society.