Security checks for care staff on hold
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Your support makes all the difference.The Government has postponed "indefinitely" its deadline for vetting care-home staff who look after the elderly and the vulnerable. The move has provoked an angry response from campaigners, including Help the Aged and the National Pensioners Convention, who say they fear for the safety of patients.
The Department of Health has postponed its original deadline of 1 August because the Criminal Records Bureau was taking too long to process applications. The CRB has already come under fire for failing to process applications from thousands of teachers in time for the start of the autumn term.
This week a team of troubleshooters was brought in by the Home Office, which set up the CRB, to oversee the operation to clear the backlog of applications.
Government officials have said only a handful of applicants have been turned down for jobs on the basis of their criminal histories.
Rodney Bickerstaffe, president of the National Pensioners Convention, said the use of the private-finance initiative to conduct criminal-record checks had proved a failure.
"They have failed to deliver on the demands put before them," he said. "This is simply not good enough, and older people deserve the guarantees and checks for their own health and safe well-being."
Help the Aged also criticised the failings of the CRB, but insisted such checks should not be relied upon. A spokesman said employers also needed to be vigilant in monitoring staff who may not have a criminal record but could be abusers.
"We are going to go through the same thing that teachers have been going through," he said.
"But we shouldn't see criminal record checks as the be-all and end-all, and I would hope that proper checks are made with references and suitability of individuals to perform the job."
Care-home employers have been advised that staff without CRB clearance should not have unsupervised access to vulnerable people.
The Department of Health said it was monitoring the situation to ensure the safety of the 504,000 people in care homes, and was working with the CRB to complete the checks "as quickly as possible".
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