Posts Tagged ‘CRB’

Review launched into vetting and barring scheme

The Guardian - 16th June 2010 10:50 am

The vetting of up to nine million people who frequently work with children and vulnerable adults, which was due to start next month, was halted by the home secretary, Theresa May, pending a review intended to scale back the scheme to “common sense” proportions.

May said she had taken the decision because it was now recognised that the vetting and barring scheme was disproportionate, burdensome and infringed on civil liberties.

The scheme was introduced in the wake of the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by school caretaker Ian Huntley in Soham in 2002.

However, the effect of the announcement is limited. Voluntary registrations, at £64 a time for new employees and those changing jobs, were due to start next month but are not due to become mandatory until November.

Existing staff are not due to be phased into the scheme until 2011.

Under the original scheme, the database of people registered to work with children would have covered 11 million adults, making it the largest child protection database in the world.

Read more at The Guardian.

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World Cup confirms that progress can be overrated

By Stephen Campion - 10:31 am

I am one of those who treated themselves to high definition in readiness for the World Cup. Silly really as I am not a great follower of football but the golf more than makes up for it.

So watching England v USA, red wine in hand, trying to observe the nanny state’s recommended units (failed!), I was one of countless thousands who missed the England goal through what was described by ITV as a “technical fault”. My brother watching on the ordinary bog standard TV was meanwhile revelling in Gerrard’s opener past the American keeper.

Throwing away all ambition to keep to just two units of alcohol I pondered on whether investment in modern technology is actually such a good thing. Modern cars (electric or otherwise) get stuck on the M25 as much as their older counterparts, my old wind-up Timex watch still keeps accurate time, and alas the greatest technological advance of all time, Concorde, is no longer a magnetic creature of the skies.

Perhaps this is a sign of getting old! But, as the country struggles with economic forecasts of gloom, we should realise that progress is fine so long as it is cost beneficial and adds value to what we do.

So I cheered when I learnt that the stringent vetting of those dealing with vulnerable people would be led by a more common sense approach, I was delighted that some of the less than sensible health and safety regulations might be discarded and welcomed the suggestion that more laws would be considered by public petitions as opposed to what our politicians might imagine or insist is good for us.

Progress is not always good; sometimes a step backwards is not a bad thing before embarking on the unknown, untried or untested. The football score against the USA would still have been 1-1 had I watched it on HD, colour or black and white. But the fact is that as a direct result of expensive modern technology I was let down. There has to be a lesson for government in there somewhere!

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Safeguarding regulations damaging healthcare

By Mike Broad - 8th March 2010 12:32 pm

Operating lists and outpatient clinics for children are continuing to be cancelled across the country due to the chaotic introduction of new safeguarding regulations.

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 overzealous interpretation of the requirements by trusts, and long delays in the system, mean that NHS surgeons cannot move between many hospitals quickly enough to deal with rare cases or cover absences.

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) is calling for immediate roll out of passport-style arrangements that allow NHS staff who have already received an enhanced CRB check for one trust to be recognised across the health service.

The vetting and barring scheme (VBS), implemented in October 2009, sets new high standards for checking all those working with children. However, the system to deal with this additional demand does not come into full force for four years. Trusts are being overly cautious and demanding that NHS surgeons who have already received enhanced CRB checks go through the time-consuming process each and every time.

The RCS says the Department of Health is yet to offer a quick solution. As a result, highly specialised surgeons are restricted to working at one site with no flexibility to move at short notice to cover and assist colleagues with rare or emergency operations. And children must either wait or travel for treatment. 

The college says the VBS has created a range of problems, including trusts being unable to fill locum positions or having to wait up to three months for surgeons to begin work, and trainee surgeons being unable to work or receive training, particularly across central London hospitals. 

Mr John Black, president of the RCS, said: “The college has flagged up this situation with government on three separate occasions in a three month period, and we were reassured that a solution would be reached within a week.  That surgeons are still faced with this situation is simply unbelievable.”

Some trainee surgeons have had more than ten separate CRB checks in just two years.

Ms Su-Anna Boddy, Consultant Paediatric Urologist, said: “We are meant to be training expert paediatric surgeons of the future, yet training opportunities are being wasted due to the unnecessary bureaucracy of re-checking doctors who have already passed rigorous CRB checks. 

“It is imperative that we are able to utilise the best training opportunities, in the right hospitals, at the right time, and it is totally inappropriate that children be transferred to another hospital so that trainees can learn.”

A DoH spokesperson responded: “The current advice from NHS Employers is clear that a person can start work before a CRB check has been received where there is an urgent need to employ someone quickly and an appropriate risk based assessment has been carried out.

“We are committed to working with the Royal College of Surgeons, the Care Quality Commission and other interested parties in drawing up revised guidance and bringing it to the attention of NHS HR directors.”

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Vetting and barring scheme delays referral times

By Mike Broad - 11th January 2010 1:20 pm

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.  

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Doctors footing the bill of CRB bureaucracy

By Stephen Campion, chief executive of HCSA - 22nd May 2009 9:19 am

Looking at the economic problems of this country I can’t help but wonder whether our MP’s have not actually done us all a favour. The Treasury’s coffers are currently being filled by the repayment of their dodgy expenses. Monies lost to the taxpayer are being returned to the taxpayer. If the bankers follow suit our national borrowing requirement will tumble. At last we have a robust return to thrift.

Or have we? One way the Government seems determined to raise more cash is by insisting on the ludicrous Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks that mean that consultants have to be security cleared not once but each and every time for every hospital or other place where they practice outside the NHS.

At £64 a time plus the tiresome form filling, plus the payment to the GMC of a hefty fee to ensure that a practitioner is safe to treat children and vulnerable adults, one wonders whether doctors are not paying over the odds to fund the failing economy. The refusal of the CRB to allow a clearance certificate to be “portable” seems to defy logic and common sense, but it is certainly a fund raiser.

And on top of all this we will have a new Quango from October, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, that will vet over 11 million people who may have any connection with children and vulnerable adults. Wonderful. I wish the Government would either take steps to end this expensive bureaucratic gravy train or safeguard consultants from paying the bill.

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