There is a moment I keep coming back to. A care home resident reached out and held my hand and said “thank you” with sincerity. I had only done what I was trained to do: made sure she was comfortable, that she felt safe, that someone had noticed her that day. But to her, it meant everything.
That is why I came to the UK. Not because I had no other options, but because I genuinely wanted to do this work. I trained for it, moved abroad for it, built my own life – and my son’s – around it.
I want to be clear about that, because the story of workers like me is often told as a story of desperation. It isn’t. It is a story of people who came to the UK with skills, commitment and care for the people we will look after. Only to find that the system here does not extend the same care to us.
I came to Scotland in 2023 on a skilled worker visa, sponsored by a care home employer. Within a year, my employer lost their sponsorship licence. I found out by email. Not from my employer, just from a Home Office message in my inbox that told me, in effect, that the job and the life I had built here were now at risk.
The email was, in some ways, soothing. It said the Home Office would support displaced workers in finding a new Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS). But there was no clear timeline. No explanation of what would happen if I couldn’t find one in time. And my employer, who had sponsored my visa and therefore responsible for the situation I now found myself in, still said nothing.
It felt like the ground had disappeared from under my feet.
What followed was one of the hardest periods of my life. I applied for a minimum of ten jobs a day. I sent emails to care providers that went unanswered. I had bills to arrive and no income to pay them with. My sister in Canada became my lifeline, making sure my son and I did not go without. I was searching job sites in the middle of the night because I could not sleep.
I did not feel I could speak out. The fear of making things worse kept me quiet. Fear of losing opportunities, of being judged, of
drawing attention to myself at the worst possible time. So I kept going, quietly, alone.
Then, during one of those sleepless nights, I found the Worker Support Centre website. I sent them an email. The next day I got a missed call from the team, then a follow-up email. I didn’t respond straight away because, honestly, it seemed too good to be true. I had never before come across an organisation that was chasing me to help me. When they called again. I picked up.
Within two weeks, my life had changed. I had two job offers from two reputable care providers in Scotland. Both were willing to sponsor my visa. After months of silence and rejection, I finally had choices.
I am telling this story now because I know I am not the only one. There are care workers like me across Scotland and the UK who are going through exactly what I went through, right now, in silence. Workers who came here in good faith, who provide essential care to people who depend on them, and who have no protection when the sponsorship system fails them.
If a politician is reading this, I want them to understand that the tied visa system does not just cause inconvenience. It puts workers like me in situations where we cannot afford to raise concerns, challenge unfair treatment or leave a bad employer, because our right to remain in the country is attached to that employer. That is not a fair or a safe system. And it definitely does not reflect the value of the work we do.
Care workers play a vital role in UK society. Many of us came here with genuine intentions to contribute. We deserve to be treated with dignity, fairness and respect. Not just in the words of a policy document, but in practice.
I am speaking out now so that the next person who finds themselves in my situation does not have to go through it alone, and so the system can finally be made fair for us all.