Immigrationboards.com

Dear Valued Immigrationboard members

I have a evolving situation and hence i am posting this question.

I am a doctor with the NHS and worked for 5;years, I was granted ILR in March 2022. Following that i was visiting India to see my family , unfortunately we identified a medical issue with our child , it turned out to be a benign growth in the brainstem. Which leas to a biopsy surgery in April 2022.
Later period also i could not return to work in the UK as i had to stay back for consultations and finding the best way to treat this . As this was a very rare thing . Finally in december 2022 we got help and my child was operated ,a major neurosurgery. We were in the hospital for 5 weeks ( of which 3 were in the ICU , and on ventilator). My child is on path of recovery and rehab and still with a breathing and feeding tube. This means that i still need to be in India for caring responsibilities. I am still employed and currently on without pay leave. I was paid for an year(April22 - March23) , thanks to my employers.

end of May /start of june i visited the UK and my hospital for 5 days, now i am back in India

My Query - I was given ILR in march 2022 and after that more than an year i could not go to the UK , after this i visited the UK for 6 days May /june.

I will ne grateful if you can tell me if there is a provision to apply for Citizenship given my circumstances

if yes please can you share your thoughts on how to do it.

kind regards

I commensurate with you on your child's health. I can only imagine how stressful such a serious condition, in the fragile body of the child, must impact all that know and love the child. I hope that they get better soon.

There are two absence requirements for British citizenship;
(a) absences of less than 450 days in the five years preceding the date of application, and,
(b) absences of less than 90 days in the year preceding the date of application.

Discretion can be exercised by the caseworker to ignore one requirement. It is evident that you fail to meet the second requirement. Do you meet the first requirement?

Also keep in mind that naturalisation is an application at discretion. Your right to reside in the UK indefinitely is not impacted by the lack of British citizenship, given that you already have ILR.

So, the question for you to answer to the caseworker is, why should the normal rules for naturalisation be disregarded for you?