The UK’s care sector is facing severe staffing shortages, and international recruitment has become essential. But behind the hiring boom, some workers are being exploited by rogue agencies — charged illegal fees, underpaid, poorly housed, and threatened into silence. This article explores what’s going wrong, who’s responsible, and how employers can ensure their recruitment practices are ethical, compliant, and fair.

In this article, we look at why Safer Recruitment is so much more than DBS Checks. It explores the essential elements of safer recruitment in social care, including reference checks, qualifications, and comprehensive training.

In the past year, we have seen the number of DBS Checks processed for healthcare-related roles grow by over 150%. But despite a huge recruitment push across the health and social care sectors, there is still a huge volume of unfilled vacancies.

Carer’s Week 2021 seeks to highlight the amazing unpaid work carried out by millions of unpaid carers in the UK every day. The focus for this year is to ‘Make Caring Visible and Valued’ with that in mind we thought we’d shed some light on some of the key facts and figures relating to unpaid care.