Children are being forced to wait months to see consultants because of delays caused by the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS).
New regulations mean that consultants need to undergo a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check every time they work at a new hospital and are not allowed to start work until the process is completed and hard copy received by post by the employing trust.
The government’s controversial new scheme has been set up in response to the Soham murders to monitor people working with children and vulnerable adults.
Currently, backlogs in the system mean this can take several months which is creating problems for trusts in organising cover, particularly when highly specialist doctors become suddenly unavailable.
Mr David Jones, paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, was asked to cover a colleague’s sickness leave in Leeds over December and January.
Jones explained: “Despite filling out all the documentation at the beginning of November, the process dragged on in spite of many phone calls to CRB from Leeds General Infirmary. All the clinics and lists planned for December had to be cancelled, thereby causing large numbers of very upset families.
“In December, I wrote to the secretaries of state for Children, Skills & Family; the Home Office and Department of Health along with NHS senior management but have had no response.”
His clear clearance finally came through on 7 January. “I think more than a month has been wasted needlessly and many children and their families seriously let down,” he said.
Trusts are not obliged to use the checking scheme until July, but some re already enforcing its use.
The Royal College of Surgeons is calling for ‘passport’ system for doctors, whereby one CRB check for an individual is recognised across NHS trusts.
Richard Collins, vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said: “It is absolutely right that there should be robust checks for anyone who works with children, but there needs to be some common sense to ensure patients don’t suffer.
“The NHS needs flexibility to enable surgeons in specialist fields to undertake operating lists in other trusts, often on an ad hoc basis. To require them to repeat the same time-consuming bureaucratic process each time is a completely unnecessary delay that must be revised.”
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “We recognise that there have been occasions when the requirement to undertake a check through the CRB has created local administrative difficulties. However, the requirement to undertake a CRB check provides an important safeguarding measure which should be observed in full by the NHS.
“Looking to the future, one of the benefits of the new Vetting and Barring Scheme includes better sharing of information and individuals will be provided with a portable registration status which can be taken from role to role providing for the passporting system that the Royal College of Surgeons is asking for.”
The Independent Safeguarding Authority, which oversees the VBS, recently hit the headlines when Hospital Dr revealed that it has the power to bar doctors from working with patients if there has been a complaint against them.
Doctors must register with the VBS from July. There will be a one-off fee of £64 for the criminal records and other background checks.
On the basis that by far the majority of child abuse occurs within the family, shoud we not be doing CRB checks on all parents of new-born babies before they are allowed to take the bay home - which, of course, must be repeated for every subsequent birth? And, surely gradparents, aunts and uncles should also be ‘processed’?