The care sector is in crisis. According to inspection reports by the Care Quality Commission, the industry regulator, some residents are being left to languish in their rooms 24 hours a day. In extreme cases, some residents are being denied showers for over a week, enduring assaults from fellow residents, and left soaking in their own urine.

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Staff shortages rose by 52% in the last year to 165,000 vacancies, according to Skills for Care. This means that close to 1 in 10 social care posts in England are now vacant. 95% of care providers said they were unable to take on new clients in need of their help due to a lack of staff.

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And it’s only getting worse. 25% of the workforce is over 55 and over half of all young carers want to leave the sector in the next year. Many attribute this to low pay, long hours and exhausting workloads. At the same time, supermarkets and Amazon warehouses can offer staff both a pay rise and a reduction in stress. Why wouldn’t they take that? Care providers we interviewed have tried everything. From job boards to referrals to social media adverts, nothing seems to be a permanent solution to plug the gap. Some are paying temporary worker agencies up to a 100% premium to fill last minute shifts. Since February, when the government put Health and Care jobs on the shortage occupation list, some providers have turned to international hiring as a last resort. Increasingly, providers are finding success in filling vacancies with overseas workers who are keen to come to the UK.

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Problem solved? Well, no. Getting started seems daunting - the process can be complex and intricate. Because of this, most care providers are forking over upwards of £5000 to lawyers for help getting the sponsor license and then a further £1500 for each applicant. Further, some recruiters are charging another £3000-£5000 to these care providers to find them vetted quality staff. What makes things more confusing is that the providers are getting many applications from overseas workers looking for sponsorship, but because they can’t verify or vet these candidates they are forced to turn to recruiters to make sure the staff have the experience required.

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There is also a dark side to this industry. We’ve heard of unethical recruiters charging candidates upwards of £10,000 for the privilege of connecting them to a care provider with a sponsor license. Applicants are selling everything, taking on huge amounts of exploitative debt just to get here. Sometimes the recruiters fulfil their promises, sometimes they don’t.

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Whenever there is a broken, exploitative market, we believe it’s crucial for someone to step in and build a better process. Here at Borderless, we’re building technology to streamline the international recruitment of carers and nurses, providing an intuitive platform for care providers to filter, select and process visas all without leaving their browser. We want to wipe out the cowboys of the industry who are exploiting the carers, ripping off the providers and ultimately sacrificing the care of the service users.