Category: DBS News and Advice

A recent report has heaped criticism over the way in which a care home in Blackburn, Lancashire has been managing its recruitment. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) arrived for an unannounced inspection of the facility in November 2020, after receiving reports from social services staff under whistleblowing procedures.

Over the last year, the DBS has been quick to respond to the challenges faced by the health and social care sector when dealing with the Covid 19 pandemic. A recent change announced by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) should make recruitment across the healthcare sector easier, or at least ease the administrative burden for HR staff.

At the end of November 2020, an important change in the Disclosure process for England and Wales came into effect. The new order is a major shake-up on the way in which youth cautions, warnings or reprimands are handled by the Disclosure and Barring Service, and also changed the “multiple conviction rule”. The hope is that the change in the law will allow more people to get back into work, leaving minor transgressions in the past behind them.

Ever since the Covid 19 pandemic hit the UK at the start of 2020, a vaccine has been seen as the way out of repeated lockdowns and social distancing. Now we have three vaccines approved, with the first patients receiving doses in December 2020. Plans to vaccinate all people over the age of 50, along with those classed as clinically vulnerable require a huge number of people to administer the vaccines. But this recruitment process hasn’t gone smoothly, with medical staff reporting a huge bureaucratic nightmare in registering as a potential vaccinator.

Although most students didn’t return to schools in the UK after the Christmas break, plans are being made to get as many students back into classrooms as quickly as possible. One of the strategies being considered is vaccinating teachers and other school staff. In addition, there are calls for teams of volunteers to go into secondary schools across England and set up a programme of testing for students. This would involve administering quick-response lateral flow tests to children, and then following the right protocols for anyone who tests positive. Concern has been raised about the fact that these volunteers won’t be DBS checked, but is this legal?

If you are asked for a background check or a potential employee does a check through the DBS, then it is likely you will have a few questions concerning this procedure.

CRB checks are often an integral part of an employer or organisation’s safeguarding process to help them make safer recruitment and licensing decisions. These are also known as DBS checks because they are carried out by the Disclosure and Barring Service, which comes under the Home Office umbrella.

How confidential is the information that appears in all levels of Disclosure and Barring Service’s (DBS) checks?

In response to the increased demand for frontline healthcare workers in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic that’s swept the UK, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is now providing standard and enhanced CRB checks free-of-charge.

Scams are nothing new. Scammers however have to be constantly one step ahead of the game and come up with new ways of parting people from their money. One of the most recent scams is around fleecing prospective job candidates, asking them to apply for a DBS Check which just doesn’t exist.