Coronavirus: Home Office causing foreign NHS staff 'unnecessary distress' over rules for free visas

Frontline NHS workers don't know whether or not they need to apply to extend visas during coronavirus pandemic as department 'constantly shifts' policy and refuses to provide clarification

The Home Office has been accused of causing foreign doctors and nurses in the NHS “unnecessary distress” as they fight coronavirus in Britain's hospitals after declaring they would have their visas extended free of charge - only to apparently narrow the group that would benefit.

Home Secretary Priti Patel announced on 31 March that doctors, nurses and paramedics employed by the NHS whose visa are due to expire before October would automatically have their visas extended, free of charge, for one year, as part of the “national effort to combat coronavirus”.

But more than two weeks later the Home Office's position appears to have changed, with its website now indicating that this only applies to people who hold a Tier 2 working visa.

This would mean NHS workers with different forms of immigration status – such as those on family reunion visas or those with limited leave to remain – who need to apply for extensions before October, would not benefit from the offer.

When The Independent requested clarification as to whether the extension applied to NHS staff other than those on Tier 2 visas, the Home Office refused to answer the question and only provided the information from the initial announcement by Ms Patel.

Speaking to MPs in the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, Adrian Berry, chair, Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (ILPA), said there had either been a "shift in policy or a lack of clarity", but that on either basis the policy ought to extend to all NHS workers.

He raised concern that immigration lawyers were having to rely on notices posted by the Home Office on the internet "in a fairly ad-hoc way with one notice replacing another without any suggestion there's been a change", adding: "We’re all forced to log online and try find out. There isn’t a single source of information."

Immigration barrister Colin Yeo echoed his concerns, telling the committee the Home Office's communications on immigration issues such as the automatic visa extensions for NHS workers had been “pretty terrible so far”.

“If we as lawyers are struggling to understand what’s going on and what these announcements cover, then the migrants affected will have no idea, basically, what’s going on. People have got clients very worried about their immediate status, and people are getting very nervous about what the implications will be in the future," he added.

A briefing note published by ILPA on Monday states that, if the policy has been changed to exclude anyone who is not on a Tier 2 visa, this was "clearly unfair" to anyone covered by the earlier announcement but not under these changes and amounted to an "entirely unsatisfactory" manner in which to make such policy changes, not least because the earlier version was not easily accessible.

Sonia Lenegan, legal director and ILPA, said the department must provide clarity on the matter “as a matter of urgency”.

“This is frustrating both for those non-Tier 2 NHS workers who do not know whether or not they will need to apply to extend their leave, as well as for immigration lawyers who are having to try advise clients on the basis of information that is constantly shifting, with no explanation being provided from the Home Office,” she told The Independent.

“The lack of clarity will create additional distress for NHS staff which is entirely unnecessary, the Home Office must explain why this change has been made as a matter of urgency."

Concern has also been raised about the fact that the visa extension does not apply to healthcare staff working in the private sector who have been drafting in to tackle coronavirus, nor other members of NHS staff such as cleaners and porters.

Mr Berry told MPs on Tuesday: "It doesn't extend to agency workers who are employed by private hospitals but who are now providing NHS care because the private sector has been brought into that. They need to be included as well

"And extend it also to hospital porters health acre assistant and cleaners working in the NHS, because those are the sorts of people without which of course the hospitals would not be able to function. It shouldn't be a question of certain classes of NHS workers."

It comes after MPs called on the department to extend the visa extensions to people working in the social care sector, arguing that they are working to aid the national effort to combat coronavirus.

Yvette Cooper, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said care workers should also be included in the changes so that they do not have to go through a “costly and burdensome” visa process during this time.