Care Homes and Sponsor Licence Compliance
Although care homes and nursing homes are no longer able to recruit carers and senior carers from overseas on the Health and Care Worker Visa, the Home Office continues to view the healthcare sector as high risk for non-compliance with sponsor licence requirements and a target for enforcement action.
OTS Solicitors has substantial expertise in helping care homes and nursing homes troubleshoot difficulties with sponsor licence compliance. Our Care Home Sector Sponsorship Licence team provide a national sponsor licence management service, bespoke training for key personnel, and pre-compliance mock audits or annual audits. Our Business Immigration Lawyers welcome a discussion about what level of sponsor licence supports your business needs.
The focus on care home sponsor licence compliance
The Home Office continues to focus its regulatory efforts on perceived high-risk sectors, such as the care sector. Nursing and care homes are struggling to cope with a recruitment crisis, as they can no longer recruit care workers or senior care workers on Health and Care Worker Visas. However, HR staff must also maintain high standards of sponsor licence compliance for existing sponsored staff, given the Home Office's continued regulatory focus on the sector.
Investigation ready
The Home Office can decide to investigate your company by conducting an unannounced compliance visit. Statistically, care home and nursing home companies are at increased risk of this due to the perception that overseas workers in the sector have been exploited, and sponsor licence standards have not been adhered to.
Accordingly, all care homes and nursing homes with sponsor licences should be in a state of readiness for audit and investigation.
The consequences of a sponsor licence investigation
If your company was fortunate enough to recruit enough overseas carers and senior carers on Health and Care Worker Visas before this route was closed to carers in July 2025, and you have had no or limited staff turnover, then the consequences of a sponsor licence investigation could be devastating:
- The licence could be revoked, leaving you unable to continue to sponsor any overseas workers.
- Your sponsored employees would either need to leave the UK or find sponsored employment with your competitors.
- You may be unable to recruit settled workers to fill the sponsored workers' roles and therefore be unable to fulfil contracts for care and nursing services.
If the licence is not revoked, a compliance visit and investigation could result in the downgrading of the sponsor licence, and the added expense and hassle of an action plan to get the licence reinstated to an A rating. During the suspension, the company cannot sponsor any additional workers requiring sponsorship. Furthermore, some of the existing sponsored workers may resign due to fear that the company will not meet the requirements of the Home Office action plan and that its licence will be revoked, with the carers having their Health and Care Worker Visas curtailed.
The threshold for sponsor licence enforcement action
Some companies in the healthcare sector acknowledge that their reporting and recording may be a bit lax or that standards slip when they are busy or have HR staff shortages, but they do not view their lapses as serious or reaching the threshold for licence enforcement.
The immigration rules allow the Home Office to carry out pre-licence and post-licence audits and inspections on all licence applicants and holders. That right is not limited to applicants who have submitted a sponsor licence application with red flags, or to licence holders suspected of breaching the law, such as non-compliance with illegal working legislation.
The court, in judicial review applications to challenge Home Office enforcement decisions, has repeatedly held that the Home Office can suspend or revoke a sponsor licence where a company has not fully complied with its sponsor licence obligations, even if the errors were not made deliberately or the mistakes are not high up on the scale of sponsor licence errors.
Getting ready for a Home Office audit
Ideally, your company should be ready for a Home Office inspection through:
- Using a Sponsor Licence Management Service to manage the licence for you.
- Sponsorship Licence Lawyers conducting annual audits and reviews of HR files, policies and processes.
- Regular immigration law training for key personnel.
- Bespoke sponsor licence advice when key personnel spot a compliance issue.
- An open channel of communication with your Immigration Solicitors.
If your company has not taken any of those measures and knows that it is at risk, it is never too late to take legal advice on sponsor licence compliance. Sponsorship Licence Lawyers provide pragmatic advice, recognising that compliance may not have been prioritised historically, and will try to develop workable solutions that factor in existing policies and procedures, Home Office requirements, and timescales.
Sponsor licence duties
Sponsor licence duties can be broken down into four compliance areas:
- Record keeping.
- Reporting.
- UK law compliance, including compliance with the immigration rules and guidance.
- The company is acting in a way that is not conducive to the public good.
The duties are broad in nature, but the detailed Home Office guidance for sponsoring employers drills down into the details of what needs to be recorded and reported.
Sponsor licence record-keeping duties
Record-keeping is not limited to key personnel keeping meticulous records on the company’s sponsored employees. The company is also under a duty to record some corporate organisational matters.
Appendix D sets out the required record-keeping for each sponsored employee, but Immigration Solicitors caution against placing total reliance on Appendix D, as the company may need to keep some documents for longer to remain compliant with other legislation—for example, right-to-work checks.
Digital or paper sponsor licence records
Sponsorship Licence Lawyers are always keen to point out that a company can keep its sponsorship licence and HR information in either digital or paper form.
Your company should choose the format that best suits the business and that it is most likely to adhere to and keep up to date. However, any record-keeping system must be accessible to others. For example, if the Level One User is off on maternity leave or the Authorising Officer is on holiday, a Home Office official will still need quick access to the required records if they decide to carry out an unannounced visit.
Sponsor licence reporting duties
Reporting to the Home Office can make care homes feel as though they are policing their sponsored employees, but it is an essential part of a sponsor licence holder's role. A company is also obliged to report on organisational changes.
Where nursing homes and care homes have multiple sites and employ several carers and senior carers, it can be hard to keep on top of changes such as a worker moving home, moving work location to a different care home, leaving their sponsored employment or if the employee is absent, without authorisation, for more than ten days. That is why it is essential that companies have a foolproof system in place, or use a Sponsor Licence Management Service, to make licence management more manageable.
If your company decides to manage its sponsor licence and carry out the reporting, your key personnel should receive ongoing training. With specialist training, they know what they need to do to comply with the latest guidance and the Home Office time limits for reporting changes. The company will also need sufficient key personnel and Level Two Users in place to meet the strict Home Office timelines.
Complying with UK law
A duty on sponsor licence holders to comply with UK law is very wide-ranging, but the particular focus is normally on compliance with employment law and minimum wage requirements, adherence to working time legislation, the conduct of right-to-work checks and illegal working legislation, immigration laws, and rules and guidance for sponsoring employers. There is also the catch-all provision that sponsoring employers must not behave in a manner detrimental to the public good.
Sponsor licence responsibilities include:
- Checking overseas job applicants have the necessary skills, qualifications or professional accreditations to do the jobs they are applying for and to keep copies of the evidence proving their suitability.
- Only assigning a certificate of sponsorship to a Health and Care Worker Visa applicant if the job meets the current sponsorship criteria and there is a genuine vacancy.
- Reporting to the Home Office if sponsored workers on Health and Care Worker Visas are not complying with their visa conditions.
- Ensuring that the company complies with the minimum salary threshold for the Health and Care Worker Visa and all UK employment laws relevant to the healthcare sector.
- Having HR systems in place to monitor the immigration status of employees and to evidence that right-to-work checks have been carried out and repeated as required, as well as to track the new addresses of employees on Health and Care Worker Visas and their attendance records, so an unauthorised absence of more than ten days can be reported.
- Having systems to report to the Home Office on any relevant organisational business changes, such as opening a new home, merging with another healthcare company or changing the head office or key personnel.
Challenging Home Office enforcement decisions and mitigation strategies
Sponsorship Licence Lawyers can help your company challenge a Home Office decision to downgrade, suspend or revoke a sponsor licence. Our Business Immigration Solicitors will carefully consider the reasons for the Home Office's action and the penalties imposed.
Although judicial review proceedings can be started to challenge Home Office decision-making, the court has previously ruled that some mitigation factors that healthcare companies consider critical do not prevent Home Office enforcement. Accordingly, the Home Office can suspend or revoke a licence even if the economic impact of licence revocation will affect the care received by residents in care homes or the ability of the nursing home company to care for people who are bed blocking in NHS hospitals or will result in the company being unable to meet their contracted obligations to provide care facilities.
The approach taken by the court means it is essential that companies in the high-risk healthcare sector do all they can to be audit-ready, avoiding investigation and enforcement action.
Sponsor Licence Compliance Solicitors
Our Sponsorship Licence Lawyers have substantial experience in advising on the healthcare sector and sponsor licence management and can help your business with all its sponsor licence, business immigration and employment law needs. The expertise of OTS Solicitors in immigration law is recognised by our inclusion in the 2026 editions of Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession and Legal 500.
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