Nurses being ‘exploited’ in social care

Nurses are being “exploited” in the social care sector, leading medics have warned.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said some migrant workers coming to England to work in social care are being underpaid, having their visa position used as leverage to demand “huge” repayments and having their pay and conditions altered.

The college said it has seen a surge in people seeking support “due to exploitative practices” including excessive working hours, high exit fees, poor and overcrowded accommodation and illegal work-finding charges.

A new report from the college warns that “the inhumane treatment of staff who have come to support the UK’s social care system poses a serious risk to the sector’s stability”.

It comes after Andy Burnham pledged to “put everything I’ve got” into fixing adult social care.

The Prime Minister said successive governments have failed to tackle reform of social care in England, seeing it as “too risky, too difficult and too complicated” as he called for cross-party consensus to fix the problem.

The report, which examines the experiences of 383 staff who have sought support from the RCN between 2023 and 2025, details cases of employers using repayment clauses to recover costs from staff wishing to leave employment before the end of their contract, with one reportedly demanding £25,000.

Others reported being paid less than their agreed contractual hourly wage while some said they were being forced to work longer working hours.

The RCN pointed out that adult social care is “deeply reliant” on migrant health and care staff with 30% of all jobs in the sector held by a non-British national.

RCN chief executive and general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger said: “Just a week after the Prime Minister laid out his plans for social care in England, this report exposes the scale of grotesque exploitation taking place in the sector.

“A National Care Service meeting the needs of an ageing population, with complex conditions, will need to be registered nurse led. We’re the ones with the skill and expertise to make it work, but that cannot happen while so many of our migrant colleagues are being exploited.”

A Government spokesperson said: “This Government stands firm on our zero-tolerance approach to labour exploitation and abuse of our immigration system by unscrupulous employers.

“We are taking action against rogue care providers who have used their sponsor licence to exploit workers, and we’ve ended overseas recruitment for care workers after unacceptable levels of abuse and exploitation.”

Published: 07/08/2026 by Radio NewsHub