UK care agencies accused of exploiting foreign workers caught in debt traps

Exclusive: Experts raise alarm over national scandal' that has hallmarks of trafficking and modern slavery

• He didn't have a contract for me': the Indian careworkers who paid agents to work in Britain
• What are the problems with the UK visa system for care work?

British social care agencies have been accused of exploiting foreign workers, leaving people living on the breadline as they struggle to pay off debts run up while trying to secure jobs that fail to materialise.

Dozens of people working for 11 different care providers have told the Guardian they paid thousands of pounds to agents to secure jobs working in UK care homes or residential care, with most finding limited or no employment when they arrived.