The fitness of Care Staff

Link Community Care will follow guidelines within the South Eastern Trust Contract for the Provision of Domiciliary Care Services 2008

STAFFING ARRANGEMENTS.

Link Community Care will seek to recruit staff periodically to enable us to build and maintain a strong team of carers; the following points details the recruitment of staff;

Recruitment of Staff;

Since March 2008 all staff must complete an Access NI Disclosure (Enhanced) for a full Police check against Vulnerable Children & Adult lists. This organisation has replaced POCVA.

All staff will be recruited in accordance with all relevant employment legislation which may be in force at the time, including but not limited to Health & Safety Legislation, Sex Discrimination Legislation, Equal Pay Act (NI), Disability Discrimination Act, Race Relations Order (NI) and Fair Employment Legislation or any statutory re-enactment thereof for the time being in force. Given the vulnerability of client groups for whom services are to be provided with the Link Community Care recruitment and candidate checking procedures to follow the current best practice and those guidelines set out in the DHSS publication: ‘Our Duty to Care’ irrespective of the age or nature of the particular client group.

As an employer of people whose duties may include contact with persons suffering from learning disability, or under eighteen years Link shall and is entitled under the Rehabilitation’s of Offenders (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 and Rehabilitation of Offenders (Exception) 1979 of any statutory re-enactment thereof for the time being in force too:

1. Require such workers to disclose on their application form, any conviction in a Court of Law, regardless of where or when they occurred or of the nature of the offence; and

2. Link Community Care will take that information into account in deciding whether or not they are suitable for work involving access to persons aged under eighteen or to persons suffering from a learning disability.

The Trust reserves the right to require a person to be withdrawn and an acceptable person substituted in the event of either:

1. The provider fails to comply with these procedures; or
2. The worker refusing to agree to a police check, or
3. The disclosure, at any stage, of information that in the reasonable opinion of

the Trust renders the worker unsuitable for the work involved.