It’s hard to look at the news at the moment without seeing devastating headlines about the war in Ukraine. Innocent people are dying, losing their homes and separating from loved ones. Everything they know and care about is getting destroyed. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

If like us, the second you do think about it all you want to do is help, but don’t really know where to start then there might be a solution that the social care sector can provide.

On 1 March the Foreign Secretary announced a new 'humanitarian route' to help Ukrainian Refugees with no ties to the UK through a sponsorship scheme. The scheme allows private sponsors, communities and local authorities to sign up to become sponsors, so that Ukrainians who access the scheme can come and work in the UK for an initial period of 12 months. This would include care providers.

The UK Government is currently in the process of setting this up so that those wanting to sponsor an individual can volunteer to be matched quickly with those applicants. It’s safe to say our immigration rules are otherwise complex and time-consuming and clearly, the people of Ukraine do not have the luxury of time right now.

Couple that with a sector like health and social care whose arms are particularly wide open to recruits due to ever-increasing staff shortages and this could be a very promising solution for all involved. There will be no limits on the scheme and the UK have said they will welcome as many Ukrainians as possible who wish to come and have matched sponsors. We would therefore very much encourage care providers to consider this initiative.

We are currently waiting for further details to be published on how organisations can apply to be sponsors, so watch this space.  You can also sign up for details of the scheme once announced at the link here.