The Government has announced a £7.5m fund to support regional partnerships to bolster the care workforce.
The money will continue to fund 15 regional organisations supporting international care workers impacted by sponsor licence revocations.
It comes as the country sees large-scale non-compliance with immigration rules in the adult social care sector, including exploitation, leading to adult social care providers losing their licence to sponsor international workers and leaving thousands of ‘displaced’ international care workers without employment – putting pressure on already-stretched community services.
The main objectives of the fund in 2026 to 2027 is for regional partnerships to:
Regional partnerships are being asked to continue to focus on supporting workers whose employer has had their sponsor licence revoked; prioritise employment support for eligible individuals who have been assessed as having the necessary skills and values to work in adult social care; and prioritise provider engagement to encourage employers to employ displaced international care workers.
They must meet certain requirements to access the grant funding. They should consist of local councils and care alliances or other groups of local providers; have identified a lead local council to receive the grant on behalf of the partnership; and identify a senior responsible officer (SRO) to oversee implementation and governance of the fund. They must also comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, through which there is a statutory duty to notify the Home Office when they come across potential victims of modern slavery.
And they will need to have clear data collection and monitoring processes in place to report expenditure and progress against the objectives of the fund to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
A DHSC statement said: “The DHSC intends to distribute the grant through a lead local council within each regional partnership. There will be no competition between partnerships for funds.
“The regional partnership will work collaboratively to develop a delivery plan which sets out how the fund objectives will be delivered.”
Funding will be paid in two instalments, in April 2026 and October 2026. The second instalment will be subject to demonstrating expenditure of the first tranche of funding and service delivery to meet the grant objectives.
Resources can be pooled between regional partnerships where appropriate. This could include, for example, commissioning a service across regions or sub-regions to make efficiency savings.
“We expect that 2026 to 2027 will be the final year of funding for the international recruitment regional fund,” says the statement.
“The 2026 to 2027 funding must be spent in full and service delivery completed by 31 March 2027.
“For the 2026 to 2027 financial year, we have updated the formula used to calculate funding allocations. The proposed funding allocations for 2026 to 2027 are based on the number of filled adult social care posts held by non-EU nationals across regions, as set out in Skills for Care’s 2025 state of care report and accompanying appendix.
“The number of non-EU filled posts is a strong proxy for the potential impact of workers becoming displaced as workers arriving in the UK on a health and care visa are more likely to have been employed in regions with existing populations of workers from outside the UK.
“Recent changes in the number of non-EU filled posts are also likely to have been driven, to a substantial extent, by the number of workers granted health and care worker visas.”
Annual indicative funding allocations have been calculated based on the share of national non-EU care worker filled posts within each region, multiplied by the total funding for 2026 to 2027. For example, a 10% share of non-EU national care worker filled posts results in £750,000 of the £7.5m fund.