Age UK are urging the Government to act to keep EU care staff coming to work in the UK.
The government has already agreed exemptions for the agriculture sector to allow the continued supply of farm labourers into the UK from the continent – Age UK is insisting similar measures are introduced to the care industry.
EU nationals currently make up 104,000 of those working in care in the UK, and that number is rising.
Caroline Abrahams, the charity’s director, said: “The government has granted a partial exemption from the new rules for fruit pickers and Age UK believes it should remove care workers from this proposed post-Brexit regime altogether.
Under a new rule recommended by the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee, carers would be considered ‘low skilled EU workers’ and would not get preferential access to the UK labour market after we leave the EU.
Age UK has written to home secretary Sajid Javid saying EU carers must be exempt from proposed new rules that say low-skilled EU workers should no longer have preferential access to the UK.