In some ways it is a matter of encouragement that people are aware Brexit will have a particular impact on social care.

We know between six and eight per cent of staff in the care home sector come from the European Economic area, and roughly the same in home care and housing support.

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Whilst nobody imagines that percentage will up and go, the fog of uncertainty is causing particular distress and concern with some staff already leaving with their families especially in rural communities, where the dependency on staff from the EEA is often greatest.

The uncertainty is the first concern. Recruitment is the second. We have significant vacancies already in the sector with 31 per cent of nursing posts vacant and nine out of ten providers struggling to fill posts. Added to that recruitment from Europe has virtually dried up. This is partly because anyone thinking of coming is very uncertain about the level of welcome they will receive in the UK as a result of the anti-immigrant approach used by some of our politicians south of the border. As evidence of this the Nursing and Midwifery Council has produced figures showing a massive fall-off in nurses coming from Europe into the UK since January this year.

If there is a ‘no deal’ or ‘hard’ Brexit, there is massive uncertainty about our ability to retain workers already here and how we attract a future workforce.

There is a sense in Scotland still that people think of Brexit as something for the politicians and that because we have been talking about it for so long it’s not going to be such a big issue.

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But the impact is not just statistical or economic: It will be people struggling to get medicines and that there won’t be social care staff available. The importance families rightly place on continuity of workers will go out of the window, it is likely simply not to be possible.

I do not want to be a prophet of doom, but given that Brexit is only 200 days away, we are just 200 days from a potentially cataclysmic breakdown of care and health.

The Scottish Government is being rigorous in attempting to put in place contingency planning in the NHS in Scotland, and local authorities have been working to identify the particular challenges in other sectors. But the care sector is a microcosm of the wider issues. Brexit is going to make an already highly vulnerable sector of society more vulnerable still.

Dr Donald Macaskill is Chief Executive of Scottish Care

Herald View: It is little wonder Scots are concerned over Brexit