Care home workers from abroad unchecked.

Byline: DENISE ROBERTSON 

UNDER The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, any British citizen wanting to work as a carer must be checked for previous convictions.

Even a minor offence could rule them out, but thousands of foreigners are working in care homes without full criminal record checks because authorities are currently unable to access foreign criminal records. A report by Cheshire Chief Constable Peter Fahy and North Yorkshire Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell warned it would not address the problem of the lack of checks on migrants, with some foreign countries not even holding a record of convictions.

Migrant workers are, on the whole, kind and efficient and we would do badly without them but in March, a leaked Home Office intelligence assessment reportedly warned that in some residential homes more than half the staff are illegal foreign workers. It cited cases including a murder suspect who used bogus references to get a job. By 2031 up to 750,000 people will be looked after in care homes increasingly reliant on foreign workers; 240,000 were working there in 2006.

Many of these homes would be unable to operate without foreign carers, as British citizens are sometimes unwilling to work in the industry. If those who do want to work are debarred because of earlier, perhaps unrelated, offences this could mean more unchecked carers.