Scottish Government backs call for visa extension

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport for Scotland, Jeane Freeman, received a copy of our letter to the Home Secretary asking her to include health and social care workers from abroad in the pledge to extend visas for one year.  The move to extend visas for NHS staff was taken by the UK Government as part of the national effort to combat coronavirus, but it excludes health and social care workers.

We are encouraged to hear that Jeane Freeman ‘unequivocally ‘ backs our call for an extension to visas for health and social care workers.  Jeane Freeman has also confirmed that she will raise the issues in the letter with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

During an interview Jeane Freeman said

What I can say unequivocally is that the Scottish government does support that call ….. that was a letter, a very powerful letter signed by a number of … important organisations …. We will be making [our] support clear to the UK government.

Ms Freeman went on to say

What our social care workers do, wherever they come from, is vitally important and they are valuable and valued, not only by those to whom they give care with such attention and compassion, but by me and by the Scottish government.

…. there is no good reason that I can see why you would take a different stand for our NHS workers as compared with our social care workers. Both groups of staff are vitally important in the work they are doing on this pandemic and actually they are vitally important every single day regardless of whether we have a pandemic or not.

Further information

Read our letter to Home Secretary, which was supported by our partners, the Health and Social Care Alliance for Scotland, CCPS, SCVO and Volunteer Scotland, calling for an extention to visas for health & social care workers.

Ms Freeman was interviewed by HealthAndCare.Scot – read their article.

Read TFN’s article.

Contact our Policy & Engagement Manager, Robert McGeachy, for more information.