Owners ‘penalised for helping CRB’

Care home owners who deferred applying for police checks for staff
so that schools could take priority believe they have been
penalised financially as a result.

Criminal records checks for existing care home employees were
originally required by April this year. However, following the
fiasco preceding the start of the autumn term last year, when 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 checks leapt from £12 to
£24 for a standard disclosure and from £13 to £29
for an enhanced one.

Frank Ursell, chief executive of the Registered Nursing Home
Association, said care home owners had been penalised for helping
the Criminal Records Bureau. “Anyone who took the CRB’s advice and
deferred undertaking the checks must now pay the enhanced
rate.”

Care home owners who deferred undertaking the checks should be
granted the right to pay the previous rate, he added.

More from Community Care

Comments are closed.