Adult care home workers have until October 2022 to register with us.
From that date, it will be mandatory for all adult care home workers in Wales to be on our Register of Social Care Workers.
We agreed the date with the Welsh Government as it will provide extra time for the workforce to register in the wake of the pandemic and help us support them more through the process of registering.
The confirmed date will not only affect adult care home workers but also:
- adoption service managers
- adult placement managers
- advocacy managers (working with children)
- fostering service managers
- residential family centre workers.
David Pritchard, our Director of Regulation, said: “Our Register opened for adult care home workers on 1 April 2020, just as the country went into the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. Understandably, this shifted everyone’s focus and of course we have seen a significant impact on care homes and their staff.
“To help relieve pressure on this workforce at a time of great stress, we paused our engagement activity surrounding registration to focus more on supporting the care sector in general through the pandemic.
“When we were registering the domiciliary care workforce, we spent a lot of time meeting workers and their employers to support them through the process of online registration. Because of the pandemic, we weren’t able to engage with the adult care home workforce in the same way. So, this conformed date will allow us to give them more of the kind of support we would normally look to provide.
“However, despite all the challenges of the pandemic, more than 1,000 adult care home workers have already registered with us. This shows how much they recognise the importance of registration.
“The registration of adult care home workers and others is another important step forward in registering most of the social care workforce and improving the standard of care in Wales. Not only does registration help us protect the public and increase its confidence in the quality and professionalism of social care workers, but it protects the workers themselves and helps them improve their practice by giving them further opportunities to develop their knowledge, skills and qualifications,” added David.