Five years to register care staff

It could take until 2012 to register all residential and domiciliary care workers, the General Social Care Council’s chief executive has said.

Lynne Berry said it could take up to five years to register the estimated 750,000 residential and domiciliary care staff, after care services minister Liam Byrne announced the register would open to them in April 2007.

She said that an estimated further 750,000 workers, including day care staff, would need to be registered after residential and home care staff.

Byrne told Skills for Care’s annual conference in Manchester he hoped the move would protect vulnerable people and give care workers the same professional status as doctors, lawyers and nurses.

Byrne said he hoped the move would boost recruitment and retention in social care: “There is an outcry when vacancy rates in teaching go up but not a murmur when it comes to social care.

Social care should not be the Cinderella service this time.”

The GSCC will launch a consultation next week on how the next stage of registration will work.