Nearly half of staff in Norfolk care home ordered to leave UK within 60 days

Nearly half the staff at a Norfolk care home have been ordered to leave the UK after the licence allowing them to work there legally was withdrawn.

Nine people from the Phillipines, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka have been given 60 days to leave the country, having worked at the care home for years.

The Docking House care home, in Docking near Sandringham, is one several care homes run by Armscare Ltd in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

The care home owner says vulnerable residents will be put at risk because it’s almost impossible to recruit locally.

Speaking to local media, Armscare managing director, Raj Sehgal, said: “We have made this public because we want people to fight for us.

“We have about 20 staff at Docking plus the manager, and nine of them have been sent letters giving them 60 days to leave Britain. We have about 40 residents at the home, who are elderly and vulnerable, and nobody has thought about how this will affect them.

“We have an ongoing recruitment drive, but it’s very hard to get new staff in places such as Docking, which are very isolated and hard to get to. It’s especially hard coming up to the Christmas and New Year period.

“We have to sponsor immigrants from outside the EU to work in this country and our homes are inspected yearly by the Home Office. This year, it has revoked the licence.”

A Home Office spokesperson has given this response: “Businesses that benefit from the immigration system must ensure they have robust compliance systems in place or risk losing their privilege to sponsor international workers.

“We continually monitor all sponsors on the register and we will take action where we believe there is evidence that a sponsor is not fulfilling all of its duties.”

Picture (c) www.armscare.co.uk