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DBS Check Requirements For Working In A Care Home: The Guide

nurse helping an elderly lady

Due to the nature of the business which a care home undertakes, employees will come into daily contact with elderly patients and vulnerable adults.

Therefore, when recruiting new employees to a care home the person responsible for recruitment needs to undertake a DBS Check on any prospective employee.

If you’re unsure of the safeguarding requirements for your care home we’ve put together this guide on the appropriate DBS Check requirements.

What level of DBS Check am I eligible for?

All employees working within a care home will automatically need to have an Enhanced DBS Check.

This is because staff are likely to be engaging in regulated activity with vulnerable adults.

A vulnerable adult is defined by the government as a person aged 18 or over who:

is or may be in need of community care services by reason of mental or other disability, age or illness; and who is or may be unable to take care of him or herself, or unable to protect him or herself against significant harm or exploitation.

Regulated activity must be performed once a week or three or more times in a 30 day period.

However, hands-on care or healthcare to vulnerable adults can only be done once to be eligible for the adult’s barred list.

All healthcare professionals providing personal care would need an Enhanced DBS Check, with a check against the adults barred list also.

The adults barred list is a list maintained by the Disclosure and Barring Service of individuals who are barred from working with vulnerable adults.

To be eligible for a check against the adults barred list, you would need to be providing personal assistance, prompting or supervising with any of the following:

  • Personal care i.e. eating/ drinking/ washing/going to the toilet.
  • Cash, bills, shopping.
  • Conveying/transporting due to age, illness or disability.
  • Social work

If you are not providing any form of regulated activities mentioned above within your job role then you would not necessarily be eligible for the adults barred list.

Examples of this would include:

  • Cleaners
  • Administrators
  • Receptionists
  • Maintenance
  • Kitchen staff

Adult First check option

Employers providing care services for adults in a care home can use a service called a DBS Adult First.

This result will be back within 72 working hours of submission.

If the applicant has no match they can work straight away as long as they are always supervised.

If it says wait until the full disclosure comes through, this means the DBS have indicated that you must wait for the full disclosure certificate before making a recruitment decision regarding this applicant.

This just means the check has proved inconclusive and does not necessarily mean that the individual is actually included on the ISA adult list.

However, you must exercise appropriate caution by waiting for the disclosure certificate.

We provide this service for an extra £9 on top of an enhanced disclosure.

However please note that this service is only available to organisations who are eligible to access the DBS’s adult barred list and who have requested a check of the barred list on their DBS application form.

DBS Check requirements for working in a care home – Conclusion

We hope you found our blog  useful. If you have any questions or would like to know more about DBS requirements for working in a care home please don’t hesitate to get in touch – we’d love to hear from you.

Our blogs are advisory in nature and reflect uCheck Limited’s current thinking about best and common practice in the subjects discussed.

The information contained in our blogs have been provided for information purposes only. This information does not constitute legal, professional, or commercial advice. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure that the content is up to date, useful and accurate, uCheck gives no guarantees, undertakings, or warranties in this regard, or, for any loss or damage caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with reliance on the use of such information.

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