New criminal check fees hit patient care home owners

Care home owners who deferred applying for criminal records
checks for their existing staff so that schools could take
priority, believe they have been penalised financially as a result,
writes Katie Leason.

Criminal records checks for existing care home employees were
originally required by April this year. But following the fiasco
preceding the start of the autumn term last year, where some
schools were unable to open because teachers and teaching
assistants had not received their checks, it was announced in
November that the date for existing care home employees had been
put back to October 2004.

However, this summer, the cost of criminal records checks
increased from £12 to £24 for a standard check and
£13 to £29 for an enhanced check.

Frank Ursell, chief executive of the Registered Nursing Home
Association, said that last year his organisation, which is an
umbrella body, had been asked to persuade its members to wait
before applying for checks.

“Anyone who took their advice and deferred undertaking the
checks must now pay the enhanced rate,” he said, adding that
these care home owners should be granted the right to pay the
previous, lower rate.

“We’ve been penalised for helping the CRB,” he
said.

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